right off the bat let's get rid of the old myth once and for all that money is not important money is important to any person living in civilized society the amount of money we receive will always be in direct ratio to the need for what we do our ability to do it you'd be amazed at the number of people who want more money but don't want to take the time and trouble to qualify for it and until they qualify for it there's no way on Earth for them to earn it every single qualification for success is acquired through habit people people form habits and habits form Futures if you don't deliberately form good habits then unconsciously you'll form bad ones and the only way you can change is through changing habits we' best get rid of or modify the oldfashioned belief of the 19th century that the machine will help lighten Man's Burden that it will remain a means to an end and see the danger that if technology is permitted to follow its own logic it will become a cancer-like growth eventually threatening the structured system of individual social life hello this is Earl Nightingale before we start I'd like you to know that I'm not going to try to tell you how to live your life that's none of my business nor is it anybody else's business that's your business nor is this program a collection of pleasantries platitudes or poana it is a summation of more than 20 years of research on one subject and that is why do some people do so well in life while so many more do not and the first thing let's talk about about is the magic word the experts call it the most important word as far as the results we get from Life are concerned in this or any other language and that word is attitude it is our attitude toward life which will determine life's attitude toward us let's face the fact honestly that we shape our own lives and the shapes of them will be determined by our attitudes a person with a poor attitude toward learning for example isn't going to learn much until he changes his attitude if we take the attit ude that we cannot do something we generally will not do it an attitude of failure and we're whipped before we start so we know then that what we receive from Life what we accomplish or fail to accomplish is due in large measure to our overall attitude William James of Harvard University put it this way the greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind and isn't it wonderful that we have this measure of control before we start talking about our attitude toward the world let's talk about our attitude toward ourselves since it is the attitude we take toward ourselves which determines our attitude toward the world now right here we come to a rather strange fact we're so familiar with ourselves we tend to take ourselves for granted we tend to minimize the things we can accomplish the goals we can reach and for some equally strange reason believe others can accomplish things in our field which we cannot there are literally millions of human beings living narrow darkened frustrated lives living defensively simply because they take a defensive doubtful attitude toward themselves and as a result toward life in general many people are suspicious of and oppose change yet change is the one thing in life on which we can absolutely count people who stay young all the years of their lives not only welcome change but see it for what it really is new opportunity new chances for further fulfillment attitude is a reflection a result of a person's will it is incalculably powerful it can bring about marvelous results for us but we need to train it patiently day by day now let's talk about the attitudes of people who are successful the top 5% of the people who go sailing through life from one success to another and who even when they fail at something shrug it off and head right out again no matter who the person is or what he does men and women in sales business Executives people in all the professions wives and mothers students top people in the armed forces public servants men and women in the service of religion working men and women in all fields of endeavor wherever you find a person doing an outstanding job and getting outstanding results you will find a person with the right kind of attitude these people take the attitude toward themselves that they can accomplish what they set out to accomplish that there's no good reason on Earth why they can't be competent successful they have a healthy attitude toward themselves and as a result toward life and the things they want to accomplish and because of this they achieve some remarkable things and they come to be called successful outstanding brilliant lucky and a lot of other things they're quite frequently no more brilliant or outstanding than the majority of the People by whom they're surrounded but they did develop the right attitude and they found their accomplishments not too difficult and many times surprisingly easy simply because it seems that so few are really trying really believe in themselves successful people come in all shapes and sizes and in widely varying degrees of intelligence background and so on but they all have one thing in common they expect more good out of life than bad they expect to succeed more than they fail if you want something worthwhile take the attitude that there are a lot more reasons why you can have it than there are that you cannot and set out to earn it go after it work at it ask for it and nine times out of 10 you'll get it our environment is really a mirror of our mental attitude if we don't like our environment we have to change our attitude first now the world plays no favorites it's impersonal it doesn't care whether we change or not adopting a good healthy attitude toward life doesn't affect the world and the people in it nearly as much as it affects us it would be impossible to even estimate the number of jobs which have been lost the number of promotions missed the number of sales not made the number of marriages ruined by poor attitudes but you can number in the millions the jobs which are held but hated the marriages which are tolerated but unhappy all because of people who are waiting for the world and others to change toward them instead of being big enough and wise enough to at least make a test which will prove Beyond any shadow of a doubt where most or at least a big part of the trouble lies studies made to the lives of literally thousands of successful people have shown that they radiate confidence Assurance they expect success and they get success you can spot these people by the way they walk by the way they look and act you can feel it about them when they enter a room they may be short and fat or tall and thin or any combination in between but they have about them the attitude of success right now I want you to realize if you don't already that in 5 years or less you can get right to the top of the work you're now doing I know this but the important question here is do you know this the minute you do know it you'll have this right attitude I'm talking about the easiest and most effective means of forming a good attitude habit is to begin to act as though you have a good positive expectant attitude toward life that's right begin right now to walk act and look as though you belong to this group if you're already in the top 5% you'll know what I mean if you've never tried it you'll be amazed at what happen actions trigger feelings just as feelings trigger actions now let me tell you of a little test you can make which will prove Beyond any shadow of a doubt that a good attitude can change a person's life as dramatically as walking from a darkened room into the bright clear light of day not long ago I read a line which went life is dull only to dull people this is true but it also could have read life is interesting only to interesting people or life is successful only to successful people now what I'm trying to say is that you must first become mentally from an attitude standpoint that which you wish to achieve a famous restauranteur was being interviewed by a reporter who asked when did you become successful he replied I was successful when I was sleeping on park benches because I knew what I wanted to do and that I would do it in short his attitude had been one of success of expecting success long before the material the tangible rewards of success had been earned a person must act look and because of these things feel successful before the success he seeks can come chances are you know people who seem to be what others call Lucky all kinds of good and wonderful things seem to happen to them and they give the impression of Happily sailing through life having a wonderful time and getting more accomplished in a year than most people do in five this has been figured out fairly scientifically and if anyone will conscientiously go about the test I'm going to recommend and stay with it every day day for the next 30 days without fail that person can join this small happy and extremely productive group of people he'll find himself becoming lucky as they say and most of his problems will pretty well take care of themselves of this you can be sure the results will be nothing short of amazing now it makes no difference how good a person's attitude has been in the past anything can be improved upon and it's the small refinements upon something already good that makes it great so here's the test for the next 30 days act toward the world everything and everyone with whom you come in contact with the attitude which represents the kind of results you want to achieve that is if the result you want is more success in what you're doing act as though you are already in possession of the success you seek if you want others to treat you with admiration and respect treat others with admiration and respect first have you ever stopped to think of this every human being on Earth is the most important human being on Earth as far as he or she is concerned you may never get anyone to admit it but it's a fact so for the next 30 days treat every person with whom you come in contact as the most important person on Earth remembering as you do so that as far as that person is concerned he is now the reason I say treat everyone in this fashion is mainly because this is the way human beings ought to treat each other and because it will help you form a habit that will bring you amazing and delightful results for the rest of your life have you ever noticed that the higher you go in any organization of value the nicer the people seem to become you see the bigger the person the easier it is to talk to him to get along with him to do business with him do you know why it's because he's got a good attitude and people with the best attitudes just naturally gravitate toward the top so for 30 days act toward others in the World At Large in exactly the same manner you want the world and others to act toward you treat your wife or husband as the person he or she really is the most important person in your life the same with the children carry out into the world each morning for 30 days the kind of attitude you would have if you were the most successful human being on Earth and notice how it quickly develops into an habitual attitude when a person does this he should realize he has already placed himself on the road to what he seeks he is right now in the top 5% of the people in this or any other country he has prepared the ground and planted the seed he has made of himself a magnet and embodiment of that which he seeks before metal can be cast into a desired shape the mold the expectant receptacle must first be fashioned before a building can be erected the excavation must be made and the foundation laid and before a person can achieve the kind of life he wants he must become that kind of individual he must think act talk walk and conduct himself in all of his Affairs as would the person he wishes to become he is then actually that person and the things that person would have and do will naturally come to him almost immediately A Change will be noticed irritations that used to frustrate and annoy disappear when some less informed individual gives you a bad time stay on the track when someone cuts in front of you with his card or acts in any other manner that shows his ignorance and lack of courtesy don't permit yourself to drop to his level pity him for that's what he really deserves that's the very group a person doesn't want to belong to and if he acts like them well let's face it he belongs with them there's nothing in the world that men women and children want and need more than the feeling that they're important that they're needed and respected they will give their love their affection their respect and their business to the person who fills this need so the magic word is attitude and in summing up a few points to keep in mind one it is our attitude at the beginning of a task which more than anything else will affect its successful outcome two it is our attitude toward life which determines life's attitude toward us three we are interdependent it is impossible to succeed without others and it is our attitude toward others which will determine their attitude toward us four before a person can achieve the kind of life he wants he must become that kind of individual he must think act talk walk and conduct himself in all of his affairs as would the person he wishes to become five the higher you go in any organization of value the better will be the attitude you'll find six your mind can hold only one thought at a time and since there's nothing at all to be gained by being negative be positive seven the deepest craving of human beings is to be needed to feel important to be appreciated give it to them and they'll return it to you eight look for the best in new ideas as someone said I've never met a person I couldn't learn something from nine don't waste valuable time broadcasting personal problems it probably won't help you it cannot help others 10 don't talk about your health unless it's good 11 radiate the attitude of well-being of confidence of a person who knows where he's going this will inspire those around you and you'll find good things will begin happening to you and 12 lastly for the next 30 days treat everyone with whom you come in contact as the most important person on Earth if you'll do this for 30 days you'll do it for the rest of your life now in closing remember the words of Walter Dale Scott of Northwestern University success or failure in any undertaking is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities back in the year 1843 a man was born who during his lifetime was to have a profound effect on literally millions of people his name was Russell Herman Conwell he became a lawyer then a newspaper editor and finally a clergyman in 1881 it was during this latter period that an incident occurred which was to change his life and the lives of countless others one day a group of boys came to Dr Conwell at his church and asked him if he would be willing to instruct them in college courses they wanted a college education but lacked the money to attend he told him he'd do all he could and as the boys left a thought an idea began forming in Dr conwell's mind mind he asked himself why couldn't there be a fine college for poor but deserving young men here was a great idea and he went to work on it at once almost single-handedly Dr Conwell raised between $6 and $8 million with which he founded the now well-known Temple University of Philadelphia it was how he raised this money that I want to tell you about he raised the money by giving lectures all over the country more than 6,000 of them and in each he told a story called Acres of diamonds this was a true story which had affected him very deeply just as it affected his audiences it was the story of a farmer who had settled in Africa this farmer had heard the exciting stories of other African settlers who had made Millions by discovering diamond mines realizing the African continent was rich in diamonds the farmer could hardly wait to sell his farm and search for diamonds himself he spent the rest of his life wandering the vast African continent searching for the gleaming gems which brought such high prices on the markets of the world but without success finally in a sudden fit of despondency broke and desperate as I remember the story he threw himself into a river and drowned during this time the man who had bought his farm one day found a large and unusual stone in the Stream which cut through the property it turned out to be a great Diamond of enormous value and then he discovered that his farm was covered with them it was to become one of the world's richest diamond mines now the first farmer had owned literally Acres of diamonds but had sold them for practically nothing in order to look for them elsewhere if he had only taken the time and study to know what diamonds looked like in their rough State and had first thoroughly explored the land he had owned he would have had the millions he sought right on the land he had been living upon what so profoundly affected Dr Conwell and subsequently thousands of others was the obvious fact that each of us is at this moment standing in the middle of his own Acres of diamonds if we will only have the wisdom and patience to intelligently and effectively explore the work in which we are now engaged we will usually find that it contains the riches we seek whether they be Financial or intangible or both before we go running off to what we think are greener pastures let's make sure that our own is not just as green or perhaps even Greener while we're looking at other pastures other people are looking at ours there's nothing more pitiful to my mind than the person who wastes his life running from one thing to another like the First Farmer forever looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and never staying with one thing long enough to find it for no matter what your goal may be the road to it can be found somewhere in the work in which you now find yourself it wasn't until he was completely paralyzed for example and was forced to reach into the resources of his mind that a Wisconsin Farmer got the idea of producing exceptionally good meat products on his farm and one of the country's largest meat packing companies was born his farm contained Acres of diamonds too he had just never seen them before a paper salesman found a dirty drinking glass in his hotel room and gave his company the idea of manufacturing paper cups an idea that solved his financial problems for Life an insurance man got the idea of going back to all the people in his files and really working with them serving them the way they should be served that year he wrote an additional 700 ,000 of insurance made the million dooll Roundtable and found he no longer had to approach coal prospects that by working with the people he had already sold and on their referrals he had Acres of diamonds right in his filing cabinet a Man Out West a mass of Fortune with a single small gas station in the beginning when things were tough he would ask himself each morning what can I do to increase my service to my customers he still asks that question of himself each morning when he gets up and while he could have retired years ago a wealthy man he continues to dominate the business in his area by thinking of new and better ways to be of service do you know what the so-called average man would have done in this last case he would have been worried about how bad business was because in the beginning my friend had a hard time just feeding his family when one day a man would have driven in the station in a big shiny car this average man seeing the wealthy customer would have said to himself I ought to be in his business instead of mine you see the average man believes some businesses are better than others instead of of realizing the truth that there are no bad businesses there are just those people who do not know enough to see the opportunities in the work they in jobs don't have Futures people do no matter what our work happens to be it's our business we're its manager if we can see no future or opportunity in it it isn't because it's not there but only because we can't see it one time another farmer poked a tiny pumpkin into an empty 1gallon jug the pumpkin grew until it completely filled The Jug and could grow no more when it was ripe the farmer broke the glass jug and had a pumpkin which had assumed the Jug's exact shape in life each of us does a similar thing we poke ourselves into jugs of our own deciding and we can grow no larger but let's be mature enough to realize that it is we who do the poking not the job nor the company nor the territory nor the economy nor the times we do it we should dispense with limitations and realize there is virtually no limit to our growth and development on the the land on which we now find ourselves With Our Roots deep in the soil of a working philosophy of life and our minds and bodies in a climate of Freedom people who become outstanding at their work are those who have seen their work as an opportunity for growth and development and who have prepared themselves for the opportunities which surround us every day it was Matthews who wrote unless a man has trained himself for his chance the chance will only make him ridiculous a great occasion is worth to a man exactly what his preparation and enables him to make of it preparation is the key it is becoming so good so competent at what we're now doing we'll actually Force the opportunities we seek to come our way as come our way they will now let's see how we can fully explore and evaluate the place in which we now find ourselves let's take a closer look at our Acres of diamonds imagination creative imagination comes from realizing that diamonds don't look like diamonds in their rough state nor does a pile of iron ore look like iron or steel great opportunities lurk constantly in every aspect of the work in which we now find ourselves in order to begin prospecting your Acres of diamonds begin to develop a faculty called intelligent objectivity that is we often have to stand off and look at what we're doing as a stranger might a stranger who considers our pasture greener than his own so to do this start at the beginning within the framework of what industry or profession does our job fall do we know all we can know about our own industry how did it begin why did it begin who started it and when what is our industry's annual dollar volume how fast has it grown during the past 20 years what is its projected growth during the next 10 years do you know that many Industries will double in size during the next 10 years this is almost a 10% gain per year in short start now to become a student of your industry you'll be amazed at the results in 5 years or less you can become a national expert in your field and remember it's the experts who write their own tickets in life just think of this for a moment if you can see no limit to the growth of your industry doesn't it make sense to realize that there is no limit as to how far you can progress within its framework surveys indicate that the great majority of people seem to look at their jobs as being as far as they'll go why we should realize how really desperately an expanding and dynamic industry needs and seeks the uncom man to share in its growth it will richly reward this person of vision who prepares himself to move up as his industry grows larger so ask yourself this question do I know as much about my job in my industry as a good doctor or attorney knows about his job within the framework of his profession you should you know this is the attitude of the person who wants to become a professional at what he does for a living it's far more fun many times more rewarding and interesting and in this way a person can ride out the occasional dips in the economic seas in a safe boat built of research and preparation in order to become a pro in what seems to be rapidly becoming a world of amateurs we have three important subjects to study one our company and the industry in which it operates two our job and perhaps the next step on that job three the study of people since successfully serving and getting along with people will determine our success or failure here are three subjects on which you can gradually build a fine Home Library frequently all we need in order to make an enormous Improvement is simply the reminding of things we've known but have forgotten perhaps this study and research on your job your industry and ways of increasing your service to others sounds like a big job well it is but in the long run it pays tremendous dividends builds complete Security and it can be accomplished in an hour or so a day devoted to reading and making notes in a permanent notebook one book or article at a time an hour a day will find you becoming an exp at your particular job in industry in 5 years or less the hours add up one at a time like the great stones of a pyramid building a strong and permanent foundation which raises you a layer at a time toward the goal you seek each morning as you get ready for work ask yourself this question how can I increase my service today then during the hour a day you set aside for study and research make notes and think about your industry about your job and Company and about people you will gradually begin to get better and better ideas for improving your service remember these words no man can become rich without enriching others anyone who adds to Prosperity must prosper in turn think of ways and means by which you can increase your contribution to your company industry and to those you serve you'll begin to notice a wonderful change in your world for as you sow so shall you reap the minute you adopt this attitude you've joined the top 5% of the people of the world you've virtually removed all competition you are creating rather than competing you are becoming a contributor instead of a feeder by taking this attitude toward your work your company and Industry you're automatically taking care of two vital parts of successful living one you'll find yourself becoming interested and enthusiastic about your work and its future and this interest and enthusiasm is contagious and two You're Building Financial Security which will last a lifetime above all keep this thought in mind as often as you can on and off the job somewhere within the work you are now doing there lurks an opportunity which will bring you everything you could possibly want for yourself and your family it will not be labeled opportunity it'll be hidden in common everyday garments just as was The Hairpin with which a man fashioned the first paper clip or the dirty drinking glass which triggered the paper cup industry or the commonplace set of names of old customers which became the fortune of a Salesman now in closing here are 12 points to remember one if we will develop the wisdom and patience to intelligently and effectively explore the work in which we're now engaged we will find it contains the riches tangible and intangible we seek two before we go running off to what we think are greener pastures let's realize our own pasture is unlimited three that there are no bad jobs but that it's the way in which we go about our work which makes it good or bad four that we poke ourselves into jugs Beyond which we cannot grow let's remove the limitations we've set upon ourselves five that only preparation can ensure our taking advantage of the opportunities which will present themselves in the future opportunities which are around us now six put your imagination to work on the many ways and means of improving what you're now doing seven learn all you can about your job your company and your industry eight since there's no limit to the growth of your industry it must follow there is similarly no limit on your growth potential within that industry nine our Dynamic and growing economy needs and will well reward the uncommon man who seeks a place in this growth 10 begin to build your library of reference material pertaining to your company industry job and on how to better serve and get along with people 11 set aside an hour a day for this study and research and 12 remember the story of the Acres of diamonds it is almost impossible to pick up a daily paper without reading about an individual who has achieved an unusual accomplishment and almost invariably these stories include the overcoming of what at one time appeared to be virtually insurmountable handicaps the boy whose legs were terribly burned and who seemed destined to a life as a becomes one of the world's outstanding Runners the poor boy who amasses a fortune the boy with a serious speech impediment becomes one of the nation's top news commentators every day a new and dramatic story appears somewhere the old story of obstacles overcome and outstanding success achieve D well they're just too numerous to mention but how and why are these things done to me this is a very interesting subject these individuals do far more than the average person in order to overcome their handicaps and achieve the success they seek but it's more than that you have to go back to the beginning and ask why and the answer to that question if fully understood will bring you or me anything we want the answer is simply they had a goal that is they had fixed in their minds a point they had to reach something that was more important far more important than the effort and time that had to be expended a dream seen only in the mind and felt only in the heart that was too big to be denied a dream which rose before their eyes when they awakened in the morning and which was the last thing they thought about as they dropped off to sleep at night this great dream this surging Dynamic thing which was invisible to all the world except the person who held it is responsible for every great advance of man it is behind and the cause of everything we see in the world around us everything in the world is a dream come true it is a goal reached Napoleon Hill put it this way he said what the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve it is the skyscraper the bridge spanning the bay a rocket ship to outer space and it's the little corner business establishment it's the lovely home in the suburbs it's a youngster getting a diploma and the new baby in its mother's arms it's a golf handicap and a business position reached what the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve do you know what this means to you and me well let me try to explain and I might add it took me 17 years to find this out for myself once understood however life becomes easier more fun far more exciting and incalculably more rewarding to begin to fully understand this subject we have to realize that it's at the basis of any success it is in in fact the very definition of success the best definition of success I've ever been able to find is success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal if you think about it a moment you'll realize just how perfect that definition is success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal what does this mean it means that any person engaged in achieving something which he considers a worthy ideal is successful at the same time it also Al means that any individual not so engaged must be defined as the opposite of success a failure any person with a dream in his mind and heart which he has established as a worthy goal is successful it has nothing to do with money necessarily unless that happens to be the goal and each of us must decide for himself what his goal is with such a simple and Obvious definition of success a person might think that everyone is successful everyone should be but it's estimated that only 5% are of all the people you pass on the street no matter how large or busy the city only five out of 100 can tell you what they're working toward the rest are just drifting along hoping something good will happen to them or at least that nothing bad will letting circumstances and economic winds blow them this way and that these are the people who have not learned the rules of life I like to compare human beings with ships it's estimated that about 95% can be compared to ships without rudders subject to every shift of wind and Tide they're helplessly a drift and while they fondly hope that they will one day drift into a rich and successful Port you and I know that for every narrow Harbor entrance there's a thousand miles of Rocky Coastline their chances of just drifting into Port are a thousand to one against them but the 5% who have taken the time and discipline to decide on a destination and to chart a course sail straight and far across the Deep oceans of the world reaching one port after another and accomplishing more more in just a few years than the rest will accomplish in a lifetime if you should visit a ship in Port climb to the navigation bridge and ask the captain his next Port of Call he will answer you in one sentence every person should be able to do the same thing unless you can say in one concise well-defined sentence what your goal happens to be the chances are good that you have never really clearly defined your goal the captain of a ship cannot see his destination for fully 99% of his journey but he knows what it is where it is and that he'll reach it if he keeps doing certain things a certain way every day when you ask most people what it is they seek they'll answer in vague unrealistic terms they'll say uh happiness or good health or enough money to support my family and so on these are not goals they are simply conditions desired by everyone when we talk of goals we mean what is it that you want you as an individual what is it that you would like very much to have or to be but which you may have felt was for one reason or another beyond your reach you see if you can tell me what you want I can tell you how to get it as long as it's worthy of you and within the realm of human accomplishment progressing successfully through a lifetime should be a matter of progressively setting and achieving goals one after another each a little better than the former just as a Ship Sails to only one port at a time set your first Port of Call when you've reached it and reach it you will you can then set a new goal and then another by following this meaningful and Common Sense approach to life you will be successful and will accomplish more in 5 years than the great majority of people do in a lifetime now I'll tell you of a way to clarify your thinking and establish the first goal if you don't already have one realizing that without a goal we are unsuccessful and realizing to that with a goal we will have Direction and purpose and that our goal will be reached we begin to realize that the establishing of a clearly defined goal is just about the most important step we can possibly take it's good to remember too that in 99 times out of a 100 our goal can be accomplished in the work in which we are now engaged if you don't know what it is you want more than anything else in other words if you're not one of the fortunate individuals who knows exactly what it is he seeks get off by yourself someplace and spend an hour or so writing down the things you would like to have this could include a beautiful home a car a certain amount of money a specific income a particular position with your company and so on a sales quota any one of a hundred things write down as many as you can think of when you've written down all the things you want choose one only one that you want more than the others write this on a separate sheet or draw a circle around it now put the sheet away and forget about all of your ideas except the one you've decided to accomplish first like a ship a person can only reach one port at a time most of the confusion and indecision found with the majority of people is because they want so many things they don't decide on which to accomplish first and as a result they often accomplish nothing at all remember you can only achieve one goal at a time once you've decided upon the one thing you intend to accomplish first write it on a card to carry with you think about it the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night think about it as often during the day as you can by doing this you will be forcing your goal into your subconscious mind from which will come the answers you need as you need them for its accomplishment this is the process used by the most successful men and women in the world this is the same system used by the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell think about it as often as you can get a mental image of your goal already having been accomplished But be sure to be absolutely specific don't generalize if your goal is a certain amount of money write down the exact amount and the time limit for earning it if your goal is a beautiful home get a picture of the exact home even if you have to pay an architect to draw the plans and elevation for you you might as well for believe me you will accomplish it be very careful about what you set your mind and heart upon for if you want it strongly enough you'll get it I mentioned that I spent 17 years looking for this answer I did I wanted to know what separates the haves from the Have Nots not just in a financial sense although that's certainly an important part of living but rather in every sense I started looking for the answer in 1933 during the Depression and I didn't find it until New Year's Day 1950 the answer I was looking for was the secret to achievement The Secret of success all of a sudden I realized that in the hundreds of lives I'd studied in the countless books I'd read a plain and simple fact had been staring me in the face all along it is simply that we become what we think about you see you are at this moment nothing more than the sum total of your thoughts to this point similarly you will be next year 5 years from now and so on what you think about from this point onward that's why the establishing of a goal is so vital to success unless we're thinking about the thing we wish to accomplish our thinking is erratic confused jumping first from one thing to another with the result that we accomplish nothing arrive nowhere by thinking every morning every night and as many times during the day as we can about the single goal we've established for ourselves we actually begin moving toward it by concentrating our thinking it's like taking a river that's twisting and turning and Meandering all over the countryside and putting it into a straight smooth Channel now it has power Direction speed it's the same with our minds once we know where we're going we know why we get out of bed in the morning we know why we're working and why it's important to do the very best work of which we're capable we know why it's vital that we cut ourselves away from in the big sluggish River of people who are drifting without purpose and cut the channel straight and clear to the dream in our heart some evening stand at a busy street corner and examine the faces of the crowds that pass look at how they walk look at their expressions do they seem interested happy purposeful interesting or do they seem for the most part dull uninterested even bored if you keep watching long enough you'll see a person with a quick and purposeful step a good carriage and posture with interesting intelligent eyes who walks as though he knows where he's going and who's going to insist on getting there close to a billion human beings on Earth would give anything they have for the freedom and personal Liberty you and I take for granted the right to choose their work and their goals to live in our Bountiful standard of living to know the peace and privacy of our homes and to have laws which protect the citizen rather than persecuting we have it all and yet in the midst of our plenty Millions leave unhappy lives living from day to day month to month in a prison of their own building these are the ones who have never made the decision that could set them free they have not decided what to do with their lives even in a climate of Freedom as Carlile said The Man Without a purpose is like a ship without a Rudder A W a nothing a no man have a purpose in life and having it throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you he also wrote a man with a half volition goes backwards and forwards and makes no way on the smoothest Road a man with a whole volition advances on the roughest and will reach his purpose if even there be a little wisdom in it and Munger wrote there is no road to success but through a clear strong purpose nothing can take its place a purpose underlies character culture position attainment of every sort decide on your goal insist upon it and for the next 30 days look at your card with your goal written on it every morning every night and as many times during the day as you can force your goal into your subconscious mind see yourself as already having attained it do this without fail every day for 30 days and it will become a habit a habit that will lead you from one success to another all the days of your life for this is the secret of success the door to everything you will ever have or be you are now and you will be come what you think about I want to tell you about a plan you can follow which takes only one hour a day 5 days a week and which brings results out of all proportion to the time spent we talked about the vital necessity of a goal to give you a clearer picture of the potential represented by the proper use of your mind for a moment consider the things your mind has brought you everything you have your job the money you earn everything you own has come to you as a result of using your mind now consider the estimate made by the experts in this field which is that you have probably been operating on only about 10% of your mental capacity the way most people use their minds can be compared to the time back in the early 19th century when just the eastern coast of the North American continent was settled just a strip along the coast to the West there stretched the raw undeveloped great bulk of what was later to become the incredibly Rich 90% of the economy and standard of living we enjoy today if everything you have is the result of using just 10% of your mind consider for a moment what it will mean to you and your family if you increase this percentage this message will show you how to use infinitely more of your mental Powers how to develop some of that 90% Virgin Territory none of us as a rule has the slightest notion of the capabilities of his mind but believe me when I say that your M represents what can be compared to an Undiscovered gold mine and it makes no difference if you're 17 or 70 look at it this way your goal is in the future your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach this is the problem to solve so now remember this it was written by Robert seaw chairman of the Department of psychology of Northwestern University he said successful people are not people without problems they are simply people who have learned to solve their problems and there you have it living successfully getting the things we want from life is a matter of solving the problems which stand between where we now are and the point we wish to reach no one is without problems they're a part of living but let me show you how much time we waste in worrying about the wrong problems here's a reliable estimate of the things people worry about things that never happen 40% things over and past that can't be changed by all the world in the world 30% needless worries about our health 12% Petty miscellaneous worries 10% and real legitimate worries 8% in short 92% of the things the average person worries about take up valuable time and unnecessary worry and of the real legitimate worries there are two kinds there are the problems we can solve and there are the problems beyond our ability to personally solve but about 95% of our real problems can usually be said to fall into the first group the ones we can solve if we'll learn how there must be millions of people today who feel they're being barred from the life they want because they look upon problems not as challenges to be solved but as bottomless chasms beyond their ability to bridge a little research proves that successful people have the same kind of problems so the whole thing boils down to a matter not of problems which are common to us all but of our ability to solve them now I'm going to assume you've decided upon your goal your problem is how do I achieve it your goal may be a promotion a greater income a beautiful home it makes little difference what your goal happens to be for a youngster it could be better grades in school for a secretary a trip around the world but you have your goal and you know that you will become what you think about that is if you stay with it you will reach your goal but how it's right here that your money comes into play now what is your mind I think the best way to describe it is to quote something written by the great Pulitzer prizewinning playwright archal mcle he wrote the only thing about a man that is a man is his mind everything else you can find in a pig or a horse this is absolutely true the human mind is the one thing that separates us from the rest of the creatures on Earth everything that means anything to us comes to us through our minds our love of our families our religion all of our knowledge talents abilities everything is reflected through our minds anything that comes to us in the future will come to us as a result of the extent to which we use our minds and yet and I know you'll agree with me here it is the last place on Earth to which the average human being will turn for help our work has hidden within it Untold opportunities the same is true of our minds but only if we will use them in order to reflect just a moment on the human mind consider what it has accomplished as you do realize that we are developing so rapidly that we have come farther in the realm of progress in the past 50 years than in all the preceding centuries of human civilization of all the scientists who ever lived it is estimated that 90% of them are alive today we have reached in the area of ideas and human advancement a plateau so high it was dreamed of by even the most optimistic forecasters as recently as 10 years ago but every new idea triggers additional ideas so that now we're in an era of compounding advancement on every front and in every area that almost staggers the imagination from the Rockets which probe the Deep outer reaches of the universe to the great Bridges which span our Rivers everything man-made you see and touch Spawn from the most powerful agency in the world the human mind and you own one now let me tell you of a way to more fully explore the miracle of your mind in telling you of this plan which can easily double or triple the use to which you may now be putting your mind let me remind you of something the 40-hour week has become fairly standard and is an imminent likelihood of being even further shortened this means that the average working person has at his disposal a really enormous amount of free time in fact if you'll total the hours he works and sleeps counting weekends and holidays and vacations and subtract them from the total waking hours of a year you'll be amazed to find that of the 5,840 waking hours if he sleeps 8 hours every night he spends only 1,912 on the job this leaves him with 3,928 almost 4,000 hours a year when he is neither working nor sleeping these could be called discretionary hours with which he can do as he pleases now so that you see the amazing results in your own life I want to recommend that you take just 1 hour a day 5 days a week and devote this hour to exercising your mind and remember what archal MCC said about it it's your most valuable possession it deserves some attention pick one hour a day upon which you can count the best time is an hour before the family's up in the morning at least it is for me the mind is clear the house is quiet and if you like with a fresh cup of coffee this is the time to start the mind going and here's how you do it during this hour every day take a completely blank sheet of paper at the top of the page write your goal clearly simply then since our future depends upon the way in which we handle our work write down 20 ideas for improving that which you now do for a living 20 possible ways in which the work which fills your working day can be improved now remember two important points with regard to this one this is not particularly easy and two most of your ideas won't be any good now when I say it's not easy I mean it's like starting any new habit at first you'll find your mind a little reluctant to be hauled up and out of the old familiar rut but as you think about your work and ways in which it might be improved write down every idea that pops into your mind no matter how absurd it might seem now I'll tell you what'll happen some of your ideas will be good and worth testing on the job the most important thing this extra hour accomplishes ever is that it deeply embeds your goal into your subconscious mind starts the whole vital Machinery working the first thing every morning and 20 ideas a day total 100 a week even if you don't think on weekends in doing this you'll find that your mind will continue to work all day long you'll find that at odd moments when you least expect it really great ideas will begin to pop into your mind when they do write them down as soon as you can remember just one great great idea can completely revolutionize your work if you wanted to develop the muscles of your body you'd take daily exercise of some sort the mind is developed in the same way except that the returns as I said in the beginning are out of all conceivable proportion to the time and energy spent the mind of man can lift anything his muscles even the best developed are puny alongside those of some of the dumbest animals on Earth if man had depended on his muscles for survival he probably would have disappeared as did the dinosaurs which incidentally were the most physically powerful creatures that ever lived I've used this system for years and it has given me some of the most gratifying and rewarding experiences of my life and it costs only 5 hours a week five out of 168 is it worth it it's like spending 5 hours a week digging in a solid vein of pure gold because your mind is all of that and so much more each time you write your goal at the top of the sheet of paper don't worry or become concerned about it think of it as only waiting to be reached a problem only waiting to be solved face it with faith and bend all the great powers of your mind toward solving it and believe me solve it you will this puts each of us in the driver's seat we're no longer passengers aboard a train Guided by some vague and nameless fate or circumstance but rather we're Engineers on a predetermined trip of our own choosing to the destination of our own selection now let's briefly recap one for the next month spend one hour a day getting as many ideas as you can try at least 20 a day on ways to improve What You Now do for a living realizing that the achievement of your goal depends upon it as does your whole future if you do I think you'll want to continue the practice two if everything you now have is the result of using say 10% of your mental ability you can imagine what life will be like if you can increase increase this figure to 15 or 20% or more three successful people are not people without problems they are simply people who have learned to solve their problems four don't waste time and energy worrying about needless things 40% of them will never happen 30% have already happened and can't be changed 12% are needless worries about our health 10% are Petty miscellaneous worries and only 8% of them are real try to separate the real from the unnecessary and solve those which are within your ability to solve five the human race has advanced farther during the past 50 years than in all the preceding centuries of human civilization we're now living right in the middle of the Golden Age man has been dreaming of and praying for for centuries and it's going to get better last of all the only thing in the world that can take you to your goal in life is your mind its effective use and following through on the good ideas IT Supplies you each of us has a tendency to under estimate our own abilities we should realize that we have deep within ourselves a reservoir of Genius that can be tapped if we'll just dig deep enough it's the miracle of your mind I'm sure you find it as amazing as the rest of us do that the great majority of people have to learn things the hard way generation after generation it's natural to think that if a great discovery was made in a particular Generation all the succeeding Generations would know about it utilize it for their own good but to a large extent such is not the case it's true with inventions and discoveries which obviously affect our lives but it frequently is not true when it comes to the great invisible laws which determine the direction of our destiny here on Earth sometime back a group of workers were imported to work on a Texas Farm these people had come from a small Mexican Village where Motor Vehicles were still largely unknown well one day they were riding in the back of a speeding truck when they came to the place where they thought they were supposed to get off without giving it a thought apparently they simply stepped off the back of the speeding truck fortunately it was a soft Dirt Farm Road not a paved highway but even then the results of their unconventional method of disembarking were to say the least amazing they went bounding spinning sliding and cartwheeling along the dusty road for quite a while before gravity and friction working together finally brought them to an astounded halt none was seriously injured in fact by the time the terrified driver got back to the they were laughing uproariously about the whole thing the truck driver in explaining the incident later put the blame on their never having ridden in trucks before well that's the obvious answer but not the right one the amazing circus tumbling act on a Texas Farm Road had been caused by ignorance of a law a law that operates the same whether a truck a boat or an airplane is involved Sir Isaac Newton gave us the law and it goes like this a body in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force when the workers stepped off the back of the truck they were going the same speed as the truck itself the outside force was gravity which pulled them down to the road still traveling at the same speed and well you get the idea they had been hurt confused frightened and turned upside down because of their ignorance of a law of physics they might have been killed all over the world there are millions of human beings who are being hurt confused frightened and whose lives are turned upside down because they don't understand the number one law which is the basis for all human success this law has been written thousands of times by the greatest Minds the world has produced and as a result has appeared in many forms for our purpose it might best be put this way our rewards in life will always match our service it's another way of saying as ye sow so shall ye reap and it's been written in many ways in every language on Earth Sir Isaac Newton in promulgating his laws of physics put this one in this way for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction in saying our rewards in life will always match our service you'll almost always get General agreement people will nod their heads and say yes that's certainly true then they'll go their way and never realize for the most part how close they came to truth so great and all- enveloping that their every thought and action is affected by it I like to think of this law in the form of a giant Apothecary scale the kind with a cross arm from which hang two bowls on chains one of the bowls is marked rewards the other is labeled service whatever we put into the bll marked service the world will match in the bll marked rewards how we think talk act and conduct ourselves is what we have to put into the bowl marked service and to the extent and nature of our service will be determined our rewards if any person alive is discontented with his rewards he should exam his service Action Reaction as you sow so shall you reap what you put out is what you must get back in return so simple so basic so true and yet so misunderstood if a business is not expanding to the quick and exciting tempo of the times it must examine its contribution its service if a person is unhappy with his income he must examine and re-evaluate his service now whom do we serve we serve Humanity and Humanity to Any Given individual is the people with whom he comes in contact it's the family friends co-workers customers prospects everyone everyone with whom we have contact is to us humanity and to the extent that we serve these people will our rewards be determined never before in the history of the world have human beings been so interdependent it is impossible to live without serving others as it would be to live if others were not constantly serving us and this is good the more more closely knit this interdependence becomes the greater will become human achievement we need each other and we literally cannot live without one another every time we strike a match drink a glass of water turn on the lights pick up the phone Drive our car put on our clothes take a bath mow the lawn or go fishing we're being served by other human beings every time you look at your watch you're being served by a great industry and by the efforts of hundreds of human beings we all seek rewards and we should understand understand that rewards come in two forms tangible and psychic that is rewards include the money we earn the home we buy the car we drive the clothes we wear and they also include the way we feel our enjoyment our Peace of Mind our inner satisfaction but remember this whatever it is you seek in the form of rewards you must first earn in the form of service to others all attempts to abrogate to sidestep this law will end in Failure frustration and even ultimate demoralization we can see this frustration on every side we can see it in the tense strained and nervous faces in the mountains of tranquilizers which are consumed every day and we can also see it in the slack Bine like faces of those who have found the whole game too complicated and have simply given up surrendered to the push and pull of circumstances how much of this do you suppose is due to the misunderstanding or to the ignorance of this simple and wonderful law of nature it's my belief believe that a great deal can be traced to this cause now do you understand this law fully understand it intellectually and emotionally if you do you can chart a wonderful course through life now let's get specific just as the field worker stepped off a speeding truck just as a child will put its fingers in the way of a closing door just as a speeding driver discovers he's not going to make the curve how many times have you been confounded because you acted contrary to the rules not only the rules of man but the rules of nature how many times have you been in the position of the man who sat in front of the cold stove and said give me heat and then I'll give you some wood people in life are like that and you can say that people are divided into those who understand that the wood must be added before they can expect warmth and those who feel they should get warmth whether they do anything about it or not or who feel they should get maximum heat from a small supply of wood we've said that a man's discontent can be said to be represented by the distance between what he has and what he wants once he has achieved that which he wants the odds are good that he'll want still more for that's the way of people and that's good constructive discontent is what gives us our continuing upward spiral of Civilization now what you should do is determine what it is you want look objectively at the place in which you now find yourself and determine ways of increasing your service so that you will earn the rewards you seek this puts thinking and creative activity into living it also assures us that our goals can be achieved by individual effort a person's world can be compared to a plot of ground it exists it's there it has inherent within itself an amazing potential and it's prepared to react to the man's every action in fact it must whatever your job happens to be think of it for a moment as this plot of ground in the beginning there's nothing there but Earth if the man just sits and watches it nothing will happen if he tosses a few seeds on it the rain and the soil's natural fertility will probably combine to reward him with a few results for his efforts Action Reaction it all depends upon just what he wants from this plot of Earth it's what he wants that he must first decide upon let's say he wants a beautiful lawn bordered by flower gardens with a big tree in the shade of which he can one day sit and admire his work so he marks off the areas for the garden cultivates Smooths and cleans the soil oil of stones and trash plants his lawn and his tree and his flowers from this point on anyone observing this plot of land can evaluate in a second the amount of service the contribution this man is giving to his project how can he tell he can tell by seeing what the land is giving back to the man planting the plot is only the first step we're given the plot and that's all we should be given it's what we do with it that will determine its degree of greatness and success it's like the well-known story of the preacher who was driving by a beautiful Farm the fields were beautifully cultivated and abundant with well carared for crops the fences house and barns were clean and painted a row of fine trees LED from the road to the house where there was a shaded lawn and flower beds it was a great sight to behold so when the farmer working in the field got to the end of a row near the road the preacher called out to him and said God has blessed you with a beautiful farm and the farmer stopped and thought a moment and replied yes he has and I'm grateful but you should have seen it when he had it all to himself you see the farmer understood that he had been blessed with a fine Farm but he was also aware that it was his own love and labor working with God which had brought it to its present State each of us has given a plot to work a lifetime and the work we've chosen like the farmer we'll be grateful if we have the vision imagination and intelligence to build well and successfully upon the seemingly unimpressive land of our begin or we can let it fall into a halfhazard condition with no real continuity or purpose behind it with unpainted ramshackle buildings surrounded by weeds and debris it's the same land it's what we do with it that makes the difference the miracle is there if only we're wise enough to see it and realize that our fulfillment as individuals depends upon our reaction to what we've been given now in thinking of ways of increasing your service read books on your line of of work read what other men in your same line of business have found to work well for them but at the same time think of original and creative ways of increasing your service ways that are unique with you and the way you are going at it strong for a week or a month and then falling back into Old Habits is just like working for a week or a month on that plot of ground and then leaving it to its own devices before long it'll be no better than before each morning and during the day ask yourself this question how can I increase my service today knowing that my rewards in life must be in exact proportion to my service do this every day for 30 full days and you will have formed one of the most valuable habits in the world Horus man wrote If any man seeks for greatness let him forget greatness and ask for truth and he will find both you see you can cut away all the confusion and complications and nagging worries and vague half-formed fears by returning to the great truth the great laws the great varities on which all success all accomplishment is built if you're worried about your income or your future you're concentrating on the wrong end of the scale look at the other end concern yourself only with increasing your service with becoming great where you are and your income and your future will take care of themselves don't sit in front of the cold stove and ask for heat for you could sit there until you freeze to death Pile in the wood serve first and the heat will come as a result next time you're off by yourself in a quiet place contemplate your plot of ground and begin now to sew the seeds which will yield you a Rich Harvest in William James essay on vital reserves he wrote compared with what we ought to be we're only half awake our fires are damped our drafts are checked we're making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources stating the thing broadly he went on the human individual thus lives usually far within his limits he possesses power of various sorts which he habitually fails to use he energizes below his maximum and he behaves below his Optimum all right how can we correct the situation well William James gives us the answer he wrote either some unusual stimulus fills them with emotional excitement or some unusual idea of necessity induces them to make an extra effort of will excitements ideas and efforts in a word are what carry us over the damn all right let your goal represent the excitements your ideas and efforts will weigh down the service end of the scale and the rewards must and will follow they will be yours they are yours the moment you realize this truth I'm going to give you a principle which will substantially help you attain your personal and business goals and perhaps even more important will result in your achieving a peace of mind you may never have experienced before and since it's the kind of principle it is it would be well to get the whole family together for this one particularly the children again it seems that at least 95% of the people maybe more don't know about this at least not fully so the person who does know has an enormous Advantage the seed for achievement is truth not necessarily the kind of Truth we hear so much about although that's important but the kind of truth you don't hear much about particularly these days truth means honesty and the way in I want to describe this kind of Truth was perhaps best put by Shakespeare when in Hamlet he has ponus say and this above all to thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day thou CST not then be false to any man the kind of truth I want to talk to you about is inner truth truth to yourself you know we hear a lot these days about the conquest of outer space and that's fine but as a radio listener wrote to me one day there is little cannot accomplish as individuals if we can manage the conquest of Inner Space being truthful with ourselves means the responsibility of making the best use of what we have and what do we have we have our minds our abilities our unique and individual talents and time these are our possessions this is really an enormous amount of wealth that each of us has and it's the investment of our wealth which will determine our rate of return and as with the ownership of wealth of any kind it's left to us as individuals to decide what use we will make of it we can squander it until it's all gone we can spend it in a Helter Skelter Hit or Miss fashion without much purpose or meaning or we can invest it with intelligence and purpose and receive an abundant return a return which will more than provide for ourselves and our loved ones all the years of Our Lives the choice is our and it's here that personal honesty and integrity come into the picture now for a moment let's remind ourselves again of the Great Law behind everything in the universe the law of cause and effect for every cause there will be an equal effect if we make good use of our minds abilities and talents this will become apparent in our outer lives if we make the best use of our time this too will give us a great Advantage because certainly we know that scarcely five perhaps only one or two people in a hundred really put their time to anywhere near its potential good use this is being true to ourselves because in the last analysis we're the only ones from whom we can steal time talent and ability it's taking the time we've been given and putting it to our own good use it's taking whatever abilities and talents we possess as separate and Unique Individuals and putting them to their best use in short making the best use of what we have in the time we're given to use it sounds simple truth is always simple and uncomplicated and here again we're placing ourselves above competition by doing what the majority do not do we're understanding something the great majority of people do not know this is using truth so that it will put more money in our pockets better clothes on the children a nicer home in which to live and with it all gaining a new and Lasting peace of mind it's knowing where to put our investment to obtain the largest and most satisfactory return here's the foundation upon which every great career has been built truth and honesty are the words for Success let's look at some facts success has nothing to do with the size of the brain the largest brain on record is the brain of an idiot the smallest the brain of anatol France who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1921 some of the world's greatest people people in every field are or were short bald and fat some tall and skinny most are or were of quite average appearance many suffered from physical handicaps some were brilliant and well educated some had little or no formal schooling so the person destined for greatness cannot always be spotted on the street nor does he always get the vote of his high school graduating class as the one most likely to succeed but they all have one thing in common they all understand consciously or unconsciously the law of cause and effect they wisely work with it instead of trying to work against it trying to operate contrary to this law this great truth is like trying to knock down the Empire State building with a feather or climb Mount Everest on a unicycle or empty the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon it just can't be done and that's that now although most people will give lip service to honesty they're really not at all sure about it with a great majority it's a matter of expediency if it's exped I to be honest fine they're honest if it's more expedient to realize a quick profit in some way by shading it a bit well they'll shade it a bit but why because they live on a short-term basis they don't see living as a long-term Arrangement they forget or don't know about the boomerang every time a person does something dishonest whether it's small or large whether it's stealing a pair of pliers from the plant or embezzling $10,000 whether it's selling himself short by not making full use of his time talents and abilities he is throwing the boomerang how far it will travel no one knows how great or slow a circle it will Traverse only time will tell but it will eventually it must finally come around behind him Swift and unseen to deliver its never failing and painful blow yes honesty is good business in fact mirabo wrote If honesty did not exist we ought to invent it as the the best means of getting rich it is the only way on Earth to real and Lasting success of any kind either we're convinced of this with every fiber of our being totally completely or we aren't if we don't know by the time we're adults we deserve every knock we get in fact if we didn't deserve them we wouldn't get them all we have to do under every circumstance is ask ourselves is this true is this honest and then go ahead with the happy realization that we've taken care of the cause and that the effect will take care of itself now let me tell you of a way to avoid stealing from yourself your greatest opportunity you and I know that living successfully is a matter of forming the right habits one of the most important of which is this business of honesty in everything we do and yet do you know that each year in this country losses due to employee thefts actual criminal stealing reported to the FBI and other police agencies comes to $500 million it's estimated that another $500 million is stolen from employers which is undetected or not reported for any reasons this is a grand total of a billion dollars a year actually stolen by ungrateful ignorant dishonest employees these people are difficult to help in that they're marginal neurotic and in many cases almost subhuman individuals who live darkened narrow little lives like moles they've never seen the light that could free them from their Burrows however this enormous monetary theft loss is nothing compared with the loss of productive energy through waste of time now here again just as in the case of the criminal stealing it at first appears that only the employer suffers but this is not really true the individual himself is hurt most he is stealing production from his company yes and while this is serious the company will not fail because of him more important is the fact that the employee is stealing opportunity from himself thereby holding himself back limiting himself and as a result he grows smaller he fails unless and until he wakes up our only hope of success of winning the economic war of saving the free enterprise system is in raising the productivity of our people if the people are complacent and content to give less than their best they're actually working for the wrong side the side which is dedicated to the destruction of our way of life our very Freedom itself is at stake these misguided individuals are crippling the very thing which has given them the highest standard of living in the most enlightened Society on Earth they're killing the goose that lays the golden egg the average person in our society is paid for about 40 hours of productive time a week although I have personally never heard of anyone gaining outstanding success on a 40-hour week this leaves him with 128 hours a week to do with as he pleases never before in the history of man have we had so much free time by giving everything he has as much of his mind talents and abilities to at least these 40 hours a person can make a really worthwhile and substantial contribution to his company and as a result to himself his family and to the nation and the Free World he will be building the security which lasts a lifetime and he will reap a rich and abundant reward he'll know a wonderful feeling of worth of value and the peace of mind this inevitably brings this is the way to really live our greatest enemy has never changed and his name is ignorance and the greatest ignorance of all is the mistaken belief that we can ever receive more than we're earning sooner or later there will be an accounting we're throwing the boomerang the wonderful thing about this law cause and effect the boomerang is that it's just as unfailing when we operate on the right side of it just as it can never fail to punish us when we're dishonest with others or with ourselves it will Heap upon us the abundance we seek the good life if we'll fair with it there's no time limit on this it's almost never too late for just as the punishment always seems to be greater than the crime the rewards always seem to be out of all proportion to our proper act so let's summarize what do we mean by putting truth to work for us it means the willingness to perform at our best during the time we should be performing at our best this gives comfort and a feeling of wellbeing to our Leisure Time our rest has been earned we know we'll move ahead in our company and Industry because we'll simply be too remarkable too unusual and outstanding as individuals to go unnoticed for very long this is as it should be for there has never been a time when the outstanding individual was more sorely needed it means the willingness to keep an open mind to look for truth all the days of our lives and be ready to toss our most cherished beliefs into the ash can if we can be shown something that comes closer to the truth it's knowing that there's always a better way and a better way than that and so on and a look for these better ways of conducting our Affairs both on and off the job it's the willingness to learn everything we can about our work our company our industry it's realizing that a man who does not read is no better than one who cannot and that a man who does not continue to learn and grow as a person is no better than one who cannot and its understanding that truth must walk with us every day of Our Lives if we're to reap the Abundant Harvest as we said before the greatest joy a human being can know is the joy of accomplishment think how really great This Joy becomes when we're making full use of our minds our talents and our abilities think again of your life as a plot of ground to be seated it can only return to you what you first give to it and what do you have to give you have more than enough you have a human mind the greatest single agency ever to appear on Earth you have far more abilities than you've ever used and far more Talent than you probably imagine and you have time the one thing which is complet completely beyond the control of man time which cannot be saved stopped nor held back for even an instant make use of these riches to the fullest while you have them why wait to say I wish I could do it all over again why not do it right the first time for there may be no Second Chance using truth as the guide your plot of ground will return to you and yours an abundance that will amaze and Delight you there may be bad days days when you feel uneasy worried or depressed they're a part of life should they come let me suggest that you remember a quotation which has helped me it's by Dean Briggs and it goes like this do your work not just your work and no more but a little more for the lavishing sake that little more which is worth all the rest and if you suffer as you must and if you doubt as you must do your work put your heart into it and the sky will clear and then out of your very doubt and suffering will be found the Supreme Joy Of Life all kinds of Studies have been made regarding motivation what motivates people to do the things they do live the way they live achieve the things they achieve and while there's certainly no Pat answer to so large and complicated a question I believe the overriding force which motivates us as individuals is a thing I call choice of environment some people make this Choice consciously but I'm certain the great majority of people make the choice unconsciously as a result of environmental conditioning now when I've finished here I'd like you to answer this question for yourself have I chosen my present environment as a matter of deliberate decision or am I in my present environment as a result of not having thought much about it as an example let me repeat the statistics regarding the financial condition of men reaching age 65 we're often astonished when our insurance man tells us that of 100 young men who all start even at age 25 by the time they would reach 65 40 years later only one is well to do financially four are financially independent for the rest of their lives five are working 36 have died and 54 are flat broke if a working man saved only a dime out of each dollar he earned and if he never made more than $6,000 a year he would save $224,000 by the time he reached age 65 at going interest rates it could amount to over $58,000 why do only five men out of 100 Achieve Financial Independence during their lifetimes why are only five motivated to Achieve Financial Independence something which almost everyone will tell you he wants to achieve now it's right here that we begin to see motivational forces at work motivation to my mind is closely linked to environment our reaction to environment can be said to be the tendency to act think and talk like the People by whom we're surrounded since only 5% Achieve Financial Independence during their lifetimes the odds are 95 to5 that in any given case an individual is surrounded by those who do not stress the importance of financial Independence people are not broke at 65 because they've been denied the opportunity to achieve Financial Independence but rather because they've conformed to a group which does not stress its importance they have conformed to their environment and I'm only using Financial Independence as one rule of thumb these people can be said to be the individuals who do not choose their environment but simply go along with the environment in which they find themselves this would be fine if the statistics were reversed if 95% of the people could be said to be successful the odds would be excellent if we just went along with the crowd in that event selecting an environment might not be too important but this is not the case and never has been if an individual does not choose of his own volition the environment in which he would like to live and raise his children the chances are about 95 to5 that neither he nor his children will live in an environmental climate offering the maximum of success and enjoyment of life let's take a hypothetical case and call him an average man in the Free World although there's no such thing as an average man the trouble seems to be that we act as though we're average in the case of this so-called average man from the time he's born until about age 25 most of his life is spent in doing what others have told him to do as a child it's his parents and they mold him much as a Potter molds clay he talks as his mother and father talk he thinks the way they think if they think something's bad he thinks it's bad he grows up in their religious faith and very probably ultimately in their political party if they have Dee rooted prejudices he will naturally adopt them as his own when he reaches school age he'll begin to emulate the other children he laughs at what they think's fun and conducts himself as they conduct themselves to a youngster in school the most important thing on earth is to be liked the craving for esteem in the eyes of our contemporaries is the deepest craving of the human being and he'll do what the others do he'll dress as they dress drag his feet as he walks if they drag their feet he wants to belong to be liked do you remember what Willie lman said in Death of a Salesman he said the important thing is to be liked Willie lman had never grown up of course it's important to be liked but this is only one part of life to Willie it was everything and his ignorance of life and of the world brought him frustration and despair but to a boy in school on the average being liked and doing what the other boys do is the most important thing in the world and this Vice likee pressure of Conformity lasts from 12 to 16 years out of school our young man goes into military service here again he's gripped by a vice of Conformity far greater than he'd ever known in school he still acts like the other fellas and talks and thinks like them but now he even looks exactly like them same shoes clothes actions everything he becomes a unit in a Thing Called National Defense and while this is the way things have to be the effect of standardization is of course enormous now let's say our young man is 25 out of school out of service he goes back to his hometown unless he's married in which case he usually goes to live in his wife's Hometown let's say he's still single for the first time in 25 years he finds himself on his own he must make a decision as to what to do and it's a little frightening one day he's standing on a corner not knowing just what to do when he's met by an old friend from his school days and the friend asks what are you doing nothing well why don't you come down and go to work where I work it's a good job the pays regular 40-hour week fringe benefits the whole thing so he does and that's often the end of him by taking the job suggested by his friend he's still going along with the gang but he's also giving less attention to the selection of a career than he would give to selecting a necktie on the job what's the most natural thing in the world for him to do it's to continue to go along with the gang he's been doing it for 25 years why should he change now so on the job he looks around to see how the other fellas are doing their work and he begins doing his the same way you see no one's told him that he's living in the golden age that mankind has been dreaming of and building toward for thousands of years no one has told him that from now on out what happens to him will be in his hands not his parents not his teachers not the military not his associates but it's all up to him from here on out he has before him perhaps a half century or more in the greatest age the world has ever known now what's he going to do with his Golden Years the first thing our young man does on his new job is to watch how the other men are working and he works the same way he doesn't want to stand out to be different and now with a steady job he can marry his girl which he does he then often goes out to a large Suburban development and buys a house that looks like every other house on the street for as far as the eye can see this makes him feel comfortable he belongs what he actually does is disappear again as he did in the classroom and in the service now here's the American dream we're always hearing about a steady job a wife a little house in the suburbs a new car the biggest paycheck and the highest standard of living the world has ever known a wonderful start in life now again what does he do with his life well he works 40 hours a week this leaves him 72 hours a week when he's neither working nor sleeping 72 free hours a week almost twice the time he spends on the job earning a living for his wife and subsequent children what does he do with his free 72 hours a week as a rule he'll do the same thing the other fellas are doing with their free 72 hours a week he doesn't do much of anything with them on a typical afternoon he quits work right on the dot and drives his little car to his little house he goes into his little kitchen kisses his little wife and says I'm tired in many cases he says this because he used to hear his father and grandfather say it in the days when men actually worked hard enough to to get tired the wonderful technological and social advances which have given him freedom from backbreaking toil and grinding poverty permit him to keep just that much more energy and good health after dinner as likely as not he'll devote the rest of the evening to watching television in this way he's able to lose himself in Worlds he must believe to be more interesting than his own what he's actually doing is watching other people earn excellent incomes in the pursuit of their careers while he doesn't make a nickel and while his most valuable possession time is slipping silently away all too frequently our young man does not see his television set as one of the wonderful near Miracles of our age and as a tool for further enriching his life instead he uses it as a safic means of escape from a world he's come to think of as dull and average all too frequently he doesn't know how fortunate he is he doesn't realize that for the first time in all the difficult centuries of man he no longer needs to work from early in the morning until late at night 6 days a week just to earn barely enough to keep his family alive he has free time lots of it and he takes for granted a great many luxuries which are the Wonder and envy of 94% of all the human beings on Earth furthermore he can actually decide for himself what he wants to do with his life he knows how to read and write and all the books in the English language are available to him at his public library free of charge in short he often takes for granted all the Wonders that have been given him and with all of this he lives a minimal existence doing no more than he has to in order to get by without too much discredit hoping that times remain good so that he can keep his job he thinks it's only natural that his company his town and his Nation should continue to improve expand and advance but somehow it isn't necessary for him to do likewise why does he live this way because it seems to be the way the rest of the fellas are living if they're living that way it must be all right here's a case of mass motivation of playing Follow the Leader without knowing where the leader is going we know that our young man has tremendous abilities and potentialities intrinsically his own there is no other human being on Earth exactly like him we know there are within his job wide fields of Interest which if he knew about them would change his life to one of excitement and make him a real contributor in the economy instead of a feeder he walks down a narrow road riding his own job and stretching clear to the horizon are the rich sunlet fields of opportunity but between him and these fields there's a tall hedge which Shields them from his view this hedge is called Conformity and until he breaks through cuts his way through that thorny barrier he will never see nor know the joys of living fully extended but how can we do this well first we must begin to think we must look at ourselves objectively for what we really are distinct individuals with unlimited opportunity for development in the Free World second we must ask ourselves some questions do I want to be like the people I'm emulating are these the people I want my children to be like I know they're good people but do they know where they're going are they successful are they as successful in living as I want to be if I continue to go along as I have in the past where will I be 5 years from now am I operating at or near Peak efficiency am I really a pro or have I been doing just enough to get by am I devoting a part of my Leisure Time Each Day to thinking of ways and means by which I can increase my contribution realizing as I do that my rewards in life will always be in exact proportion to my service am I following an intelligent course for improving my mind and increasing my knowledge or do I think I already know enough now I expect my company and my country to improve with the passing of each year but what am I doing personally to keep Pace with this Improvement have I thought much and told my children about how lucky we are to live in a free society in which we can go where we please without having to ask for passes work where we please and at the job of our choice vote and worship as we please and say what we please am I aware of the responsibilities that go with freedom the responsibility to produce as much as I can so that my freedom may be maintained the responsibility to become so effective as an individual that even if times should become bad for a while I could go right on providing for my family through the crisis third when I get up in the morning do I know exactly what it is I'm working toward have my life and my work a clear Direction and a worthwhile purpose or am I simply marking time and going along with the crowd am I motivated by what I really want out of life or am I Mass motivated Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote no horse gets anywhere until he's harnessed no steam or gas ever drives anything until it's confined no Niagara has ever turned into light and power until it's tunned no life ever grows great until it's focused dedicated disciplined you see it is actually easier to win all we have to do is know some of the rules and then follow them PG Hammerton wrote a strong life is like a ship of War which has its own place in the fleet and can share in its strength and discipline but can also go forth alone to the Solitude of the infinite sea we ought to belong to society and have our place in it but be capable of an individual existence outside of it and it's never too late for with a purpose a goal a man will frequently do more and travel farther in a year than he might otherwise in a lifetime without one chemistry professors are said to have figured out that a man's worth even in a somewhat inflated Market is about $324 this is what he's worth physically and chemically speaking assuming this to be true the net profit earned by the world on this rather inexpensive creature is so great that it can't even be comprehended but it's a fact that the living worth of men varies widely and the purpose is to help you figure out just what you are worth as a human being right now and what you intend to be worth in say one or five years from now we've pointed out that in the last analysis every man is in reality working for himself in that he's building his own life regardless of who happens to write his paycheck so for the purpose of this particular message I want you to think of yourself as a business as let's say a corporation you hold the office of President of this Corporation in that you're responsible for its success or failure you and the members of your family are stockholders in your corporation and it's your responsibility to see that the value of the stock increases in the years ahead your family has evidenced faith in you and it's your responsibility to prove this faith is Justified this is the job of a human being now while the operations of a corporation are multitudinous and complex they can be reduced to four things one production two sales three research and four finance without proper financing there'd be no production without production the company would have nothing to sell without sales it would have to completely stop production and without research it could not hope to keep a breast or ahead of our rapidly Changing Times to slite any one of these four vital functions results in a deformed a crippled company and if slighted long enough could result in corpor suicide let's concentrate on Research production and sales they're the head hands and feet of a company we could say that the head handles research the hands take care of production and the legs handle sales cut off any one of these parts and you're left with a shocked staggering organization how many once large companies and trade names can you think of which became in effect Giants and then disappeared entirely from the economic scene names which once were world leaders in their Fe field and are now only memories they failed to keep in balance in all departments research production sales let's take them in order first what is research research can be said to exist in two areas present and future that is the research of a company should be devoted to Ways and Means of improving its present products present production and present sales future research is concerned with Ways and Means of developing new products new methods of production and new methods of marketing but while this research is going on present production must continue at as high a level as sales warrant in short a company each of us has two factors to consider the present and the future how successful we are in meeting these challenges will determine our present profits and our future growth now why are all companies concerned with growth even when they seem to be doing well today it's because of a law which operates with companies just as it does with human beings things nothing in the world stands still nothing in the entire universe stands still a law of physics goes a body and motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force a company which is growing has a tendency to continue to grow conversely a company which is going backwards or shrinking has a tendency to continue to go backwards or Shrink until acted upon by an outside force now all responsible company officers know that unless a company is growing it is developing the first signs of death now you're the head of your personal Corporation and you should realize that this same law applies to you as well now before we get into specifics on these parts of your corporate body let's take a look at the next 10 years before we do keep this in mind if anyone had predicted just 10 years ago that we'd be living in the kind of world we have today he would have been ridiculed and hooted out of the room this includes everything from our gross national product to the luxuries and new products we now take for granted along with our present average income we're reaching a point in the compression of human knowledge where our advancement is more than Dynamic it's more like an implosion any prediction for the next 10 years is very likely to be far on the ultraconservative side but let's take a look at what the experts say according to many research projects conducted during the past year the next 10 years are going to offer business and the individual the greatest rewards in this nation's history it is intelligently estimated that that in the next 7 8 or 9 years the population of this country will grow by 30 to 40 million persons add this to the present population and you have a picture of a really Dynamic market and this doesn't even consider the growing World Market in the next 8 to 10 years the bulk of spending in this country will be for things products and services over and above the Necessities which are food clothing shelter transportation and Medical Care imagine most of the spending will actually be for things above and beyond the Necessities this will be the first time this has happened in the entire history of the human race it is estimated that the consumer Market will expand 50% and more in the next 8 to 10 years an astounding increase soaring into the hundreds of billions of dollars and what about research and development which is the future of our industry even today more money is being spent for research and development in a single year than was spent during the first 100 and 50 years of the nation's history think a moment what does all of this mean to you and your own individual company the one you're president of it means your future is unlimited if you'll see yourself in relation to the present and the future never before throughout all the centuries of man has an individual faced as bright a future as yours now let's talk about how all of this affects you do you realize that companies which today are growing at about 10% a year will will be twice as large in about 8 years would you say that you are increasing your Effectiveness 10% a year and our population isn't just exploding it's getting a lot smarter educational advances during the past 10 years have been remarkable during the next 10 they'll be amazing the customer is getting smarter every day and if we're going to continue to meet his demands and sell him our products we'd better get smarter every day too because if we don't he's not going to buy from us during the next 10 years our population will add the equivalent of a city the size of Phoenix Arizona every month every day there are approximately 12,000 new babies in 10 years there'll be more than 5 million brand new customers born every year well that's just a glance at a few of the things that are going on around us and what our country will be like in 8 to 10 years now each one of us as manager of his own Corporation can decide what to do about it we can either grow with it or go backwards we can't stand still even if if we'd like to this then gives each of us a wonderful opportunity to stand back and look at ourself and our future objectively as an intelligent stranger might ask yourself how much am I worth right now today as a corporation what is my value today to myself my family and my company how do I stack up as an individual if I were an outside investor a stranger would I invest in this Corporation now think a moment a company growing at the rate of 10% a year as we mentioned will double in value and size in less than 8 years can you grow and improve as an individual at least 10% a year of course you can in fact if we go along with the experts estimates an individual can increase his Effectiveness anywhere from 50% to 100% And More within 30 days men in sales who found they could through the proper management of their abilities minds and time sell as much of their company's products in a single month as they had previously sold in an entire year think what this means it means being 12 times as effective as a human being and getting back to the law of cause and effect it means putting out 12 times as much service which must and will guarantee our receiving eventually 12 times the reward we formerly knew 12 times the reward now remember please if we do twice as much we have to receive twice as much and nothing on Earth can keep it from us and the same thing applies if we triple our Effectiveness now you and I know this everyone should know this but remember that fully 95% of the people do not know this think of the advantage this gives to us it isn't that we want to take advantage of anyone and we're not but it dramatically demonstrates the truth of the saying knowledge is power now look tomorrow is a brand new day the great equalizer no more or less less time than anyone else on Earth can have to work with right now begin to think of ways in which you can greatly increase your Effectiveness knowing that by so doing you are automatically presetting your rewards each day that comes to you beginning with today or tomorrow offers you a clean brand new page on which to write the story of your life forget the past it's gone don't concern yourself with the opportunities you may have missed in the past this is true of everyone but reach out and take each new day as it comes and ask yourself how can I best use this day you know we're going to run out of them eventually if we waste an hour of productive time every day it adds up to about 250 hours a year that our Corporation our plant is shut down we can earn nothing with the doors closed what is your time worth an hour multiply this by 250 and you can see what you're throwing away now whether your employer pays for this wasted hour or not is unimportant life will not pay for it learn to enjoy every minute of your life be happy now don't wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future think how really precious is the time you have to spend whether it's at work or with your family every minute should be enjoyed savored a human life is really nothing more than a collection of minutes hours and days these are the building material and it's left strictly up to us as individuals to determine the kind and size structure we build you see an individual has a tremendous advantage AG over even the largest corporation think of any large corporation can it double its production in a single day no can it double its sales in a single day no it would like to but its growth must be a gradual steady thing because of the interconnecting complexities of operating so large an organization yet an individual can double triple quadruple his Effectiveness in a month or less it's like comparing the movement of an army to the movement of a single Scout so now again ask yourself how you've been handling the three vital functions of your business that we're discussing here research production sales how much time and effort are you giving to research to the study of your work your career can this be improved and what about production is there a way in which you can vastly improve the way in which you conduct your work and sales how can they be improved sales is more than selling a product or service it's the way in which we sell ourselves to everyone with whom we come in contact it's the way we get along with our Associates our wives and children our neighbors and if our business happens to be selling how can we see more people every day and improve the effectiveness of every part of our contact one extra call a day comes to 250 calls a year how many additional sales could we make with 250 additional contacts in 5 years that comes to 1,250 calls we would not have otherwise made it's the difference between being average or above average good or great and this applies to anything we happen to be doing it brings peace to our minds absolute security to our future great new stature as a human being in this way and in this way only can we reach our full maturity with this attitude toward life we need never for a moment concern ourselves with its outcome it will begin to become successful tomorrow and it will continue to pour abundance upon us for the rest of our years let's talk about money men and women have been concerned about money since the first coin was fashioned in Asia Minor about 700 BC you might say that money is like good health in that we're concerned about it to the extent that we don't have it the purpose of this message is to get down to Basics to completely clear the air surrounding the entire subject of money now in order to do this I'm going to have to get absolutely Elementary and while you may already know most of the things I'm going to say I think it's important that we remind ourselves just exactly what money is how much of it is enough and how to earn the amount of money you need to live the way you want to live now and in the important future years right off the bat let's get rid of the old myth once and for all that money is not important it is important vitally important it's just as important as the food it buys the shelter it affords the education it provides and the doctor's bills it pays money is important to any person living in civilized society to argue and split hairs to the effect that it's not as important as other things is absurd nothing will take the place of money in the area in which money works that's all there is to it so let's get down to business first what is money money is the Harvest of our production money is the Harvest of our production money is what we receive for our production and Service as individuals and which we can then use to obtain the production and service of others we can accurately gauge the extent of our production and service by simply counting the amount of money we receive for it look at it this way a diamond is more valuable than a lump of coal yet that is exactly what a diamond was at one time and just as a lump of coal can be transformed into one of the world's most valuable objects a human being can vastly increase his own value to the world try to remember this formula the amount of money we receive will always be in direct ratio to the need for what we do our ability to do it and the difficulty of replacing us a highly skilled human being is worth more money in our economy than a person who is not highly skilled and who can be easily replaced this is not to say that one person is any better than any other person remember that in this message we're only talking about money nothing else an elevator operator is just as important as a human being as a brain surgeon but the amount of money they will learn will be proportional to the need for what they do their ability to do what they do and the difficulty of replacing them a man can be trained to operate an elevator in a half hour and can be replaced at any time by virtually anyone the brain surgeon spent many years learning his profession at Great personal sacrifice and cost and cannot be easily replaced as a result the surgeon might earn as much money in an hour as an elevator operator might earn in a year now these are extreme cases used to show the relation of income to skill and this is as it should be this is why there are few limitations on a person within his company and Industry his income will be in exact proportion to the demand for what he does his ability to do what he does and the difficulty of replacing him this is why the whole idea of trying to get something for nothing is absurd and won't work now while this may sound Elementary you'd be amazed at the number of people who want more money but don't want to take the time and trouble to qualify for it and until they qualify for it there's no way on Earth for them to earn it it's like the person who wants a good-look figure but doesn't want it sufficiently to stay on a diet long enough to get it he either doesn't want it badly enough or doesn't know that he can achieve it to 9/10 of the world's population the average American or Canadian is Rich already there is a greater difference between the standard of living of most of the world's population and our average worker than there is between the standard enjoyed by our average worker and the richest man in the country our working man has just about everything the wealthiest man has only smaller he has a home car often two of them radio TV savings account debts they're just smaller his food is as good and just as plentiful his bed is just as comfortable his home is just as warm in the winter he has exactly the same amount of time and just as much Freedom his life expectancy at Birth is 70 years for the rest of the world on the average it's less than 40 eat 72% more than the maximum requirements for good health while the majority of the world's people have barely enough to keep them alive with only 6% of the world's population we have half of the world's total money income 94% of the world's people must divide the remaining half we have 2/3 of all the automobiles on Earth while 94% of the world's people must divide up the remaining onethird so in talking about money let's understand that we're already rich as a people now how much do you want how much money do you need to live the way you want to live to accomplish the goals you have established for yourself now here's a sentence I'd like you to remember most men think they want more money than they really do and settle for a lot less than they could earn if they went about it the right way the world will pay you exactly what you bargain for exactly what you earn but not a penny more do you remember the old poem that goes I bargained with life for a penny and life would pay no more well that's about it we will receive not what we idly wish for but what we just ly earn your rewards will always be in exact proportion to your service if you don't like your income you must devise Ways and Means of increasing your service and this is an individual thing no one can do it for you it must come out of you your mind your ability and your energy a strong man cannot make a weak man strong but a weak man can become strong on his own by following a specific course of action for a sufficient length of time and a man who's already strong can become a lot stronger it's the same with this business of money a man who refuses to do more than he's being paid for will never be paid for more than he's doing once we're fully qualified for the amount of money we decide to earn we'll soon find ourselves earning it and we'll also discover that with our new powers and abilities it is no more difficult perhaps even less difficult than what we're doing now for the money we're now earning now ask yourself how much money am I perfectly willing to earn realizing that the amount I earn will be in exact proportion to my skills the demand for what I do and the difficulty of replacing me there are really three amounts of money every man should decide upon one the yearly income he wants to earn two the amount of money he wants to have in a savings account and three the amount of money he wants as retirement income whether he ever retires from active work or not now it's here that the great majority makes one of their most serious mistakes in that they never during their entire lives decide on any one of these three vital points with regard to money if you'll decide on these three amounts and if you write them on a card to carry with you you'll automatically have placed yourself in the top 5% of the people you will have laid out a plan for your future a blueprint for future Financial accomplishment you'll know where you're going and if you're serious about it you'll most certainly get there you see the trouble with people is not in achieving their goals they can do that it's in setting goals that people get in trouble because they just won't do it they leave it to chance and find out sooner or later and to their sorrow that chance doesn't work that they've missed the boat it's estimated that only 5% decide on the money they will earn and then grow as individuals into the size of the incomes they seek they thus take their lives their fortunes and their Futures into their own hands as they should and accomplish their goals right on schedule all the years of their lives you can do the same thing and you can do it starting right now now when you write down the yearly income you mean to earn you no doubt know whether or not it's average for the work you're in or above average the chances are good that the figure you'll decide upon will be above average perhaps quite a bit above average that's good now ask yourself who in my line of work is now earning that kind of money if you know you'll have a good idea of what you have to do in order to earn it this is exactly how men move from the ranks into top positions of authority with the corresponding incomes this is how salesmen discover what it is they need to do in order to achieve the incomes they've s set for themselves I have no way of knowing your line of business but I do know this regardless of the business you're in it needs new leaders men to come up in the years ahead everything is expanding getting larger and with the increase in size and scope the most desperate need is for the dedicated able individual who can learn to lead and Lead others as well some of the top Executives in the nation today were once accountants shipping clerks struggling lawyers salesmen far out in the strange territory sales clerk office boys mail room boys mechanics you can't think of a position from which individuals have not climbed to the top in their line of work understand this for it'll bring you and yours everything you want it is not the job it is the person it is not your present circumstances which count but the circumstances you make up your mind to achieve that are important the only limit on your income is you and the income you decide upon can be achieved within your present company in your present work where you already have a start and a place all you need is the plan the road map and the courage to arrive at your destination knowing in advance that there'll be problems and setbacks but knowing also that nothing on Earth can stand in the way of a plan backed by persistence and determination with the income written down that you intend to earn spend a part of each day thinking of ways in which you can increase your service knowing that you have only to manage this and the income will take care of itself since the amount of money you want want to earn is more than you're now receiving your part of the bargain is to find ways of increasing your service until the Gap has been bridged and more than bridged look at your card with the three amounts written on it by setting a financial goal you're demonstrating faith you'll find that you'll begin to become what others call Lucky you'll begin to get good hunches and ideas you'll take far more interest in everything about your work and your company you'll see opportunities in your work an environment you've never noticed before in fact you'll soon discover you're no longer the same person you'll be more of an individual you'll care less how others are doing their jobs and concern yourself more with the manner in which you do yours there's no reason in the world why you should not have faith in yourself and the quiet firm inner knowledge that you can and will accomplish your goals know that the answers you seek will come to you in their own time if you but keep looking for them above all realize that money cannot be sought directly money like happiness is an effect it is the result of a cause and the cause is that it must be earned keep money in its proper place it's a servant nothing more it's a tool with which we can live better see more of the world give our youngsters the education they need and a good start in life it's the means to a happy Carefree retirement in later years money is necessary to Modern Life but keep it in its place you need only so much food to enjoy good health you need only so much money to live comfortably securely and well too much emphasis on money reverses the whole picture you then become the servant and the money itself the master as Horus ladimer put it it's good to have money and the things money can buy but it's good too to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy every person should know happiness in his work and home and prosperity these things can and should be yours now play it as often as you can during the next month fix your plans firmly in your mind and relax that's right keep cool and calm be as Serene as you possibly can be you have nothing to worry about stay with it everything you want to need will come to you in its proper time right now you may have no idea at all as to how the additional income you seek is going to come to you nor how you're going to save the amount you want in the savings account or how you can possibly arrange for the retirement income you've decided upon this isn't important remember that the only really important thing is that you know what you want you will become you must become what you think about be realistic about about your financial goals for as you reach them you can then set Higher Goals if you want to trying to jump too far too soon can often result in confusion tenseness and worry take your growth in sensible logical steps remembering that the big thing is that you know what you want and that you realize your rewards will match your service that is that you must devise Ways and Means of actually becoming the person who is worth the amount of money you have established for yourself a person may be worth more than he's getting for a while but the two will match up they have to in fact unless a person is worth more than he's now receiving he cannot move ahead he's receiving all his worth as Gerta said before you can do something you must be something it all gets back to the great law that controls everything in the universe cause and effect the cause must precede the effect or the effect cannot occur this is why people who try to get something for nothing are only fooling themselves and earning the disillusionment and frustration they must one day reach you can have what you want you need only make up your mind at the beginning of this series I made the statement that I'm not going to tell you how to live your life that it's none of my business nor anybody else's business I want you to remember that as you listen to this message and realize that what I say here is meant only as a suggestion I've said the same things to my son and daughter because I know how important this is I'm sure you'll agree that we acquire the skills of living successfully through know know knowledge properly applied is power and knowledge is available to all of us the degree of a person's ignorance will determine his place in the world everybody is born ignorant and must for a time live in ignorance but remember this anyone who remains ignorant has only himself to blame an illiterate person in our society is in the lowest level of our social Heap from that starting point think of society as a pyramid with a broad base gradually rising to a high point we know that the great majority of people are to be found in the bottom large layers of this pyramid the higher you go the smaller the layers and the higher up on the educational and economic scale at the very peak of the pyramid you'll find the world's most brilliant people we may not have the native equipment to reach the topmost Pinnacle although we certainly might but we do control as individuals where we will live between the very top and the bottom we can most assuredly get into the top 5% let's say the top five layers of the pyramid and from this lofty vantage point we can live well and successfully all the Days of Our Lives it isn't that we want to be over anyone necessarily it's just having the ambition and good sense to want to live as best we can the higher you climb on a pyramid the further you can see the fresher the air the better the view and the less crowded it becomes one of the most important ladders leading to the top is called knowledge the more we know the higher we move but where does a person be SK no one person can know everything in fact our store of knowledge is growing far too fast for anyone to keep up with it it's like walking into the Library of Congress with its tens of thousands of volumes and trying to decide on which single book to begin with knowing that even if you lived a thousand years you couldn't read them all fortunately the answer to this problem is known a person begins with a study of his language and then to his general area of Interest two steps in that order that can move us high on on the pyramid first the language in our case English not one person in aund knows that it's our ability to use our language which will determine our place on the social pyramid and which controls to a great extent the amount of money we will earn during our lives a person may dress in the latest fashion with quiet good taste and present a very attractive appearance so far so good but the minute he opens his mouth and begins to speak he proclaims to the world his level on our pyramid Shaw's play pigmon later adapted into the musical comedy my fair lady is an extreme example of what I'm talking about our use of the English language is the one thing we can't hide many years ago the graduating class of a large Eastern University was given an examination in English vocabulary the tests were graded into groups of 5% each the top 5% and so on to the bottom at regular intervals during the next 20 years questionnaires were sent to the surviving graduates asking them their occupations incomes and so on without exception those who scored highest on the vocabulary test were in the top income group while those who scored lowest were in the lowest income group Blake Clark in an article titled words can work wonders for you writes tests of more than 350,000 persons from all walks of life show that more often than any other measurable characteristic knowledge of the exact meanings of a large number of words accompanies outstanding success say in this article he mentions the work being done in this field by scientist Johnson OK Conor and gives OKC Conor's best illustration of the importance of vocabulary tests were given to executive and supervisory Personnel in 39 large manufacturing plants the results showed that every one of the men tested rated high in the basic aptitudes that go with leadership differences in their vocabulary ratings however were definite and dramatic presidents and vice presidents average 236 out of a possible 272 points managers averaged 168 superintendents 140 Foreman 114 floor bosses 86 in virtually every case vocabulary correlated with executive level and income children with the best vocabularies get the best grades in school a Salesman in his 50s who was in the bottom 5% in vocabulary worked himself into the top 45% and is now Vice President of his firm an encouraging fact to keep in mind the article goes on is that when we Master one word we find that we have added several others it's as if the new one is a nucleus of thought around which wh numerous related ideas that now also enter our Ken deliberately learning 10 new words we pick up probably 90 more almost without realizing it you see understanding our language is the key to studying and learning everything else literally millions of people are being h held back in life simply because they've never taken the time to learn their own language let's face it from the earliest times the favorite class of people has always been the educated class they've been recognized instantly anywhere by the simple expedient of speaking a few words our language more than anything else determines the extent of our knowledge you see everything in all the vast Storehouse of knowledge has a name a label these names these words make up the language the more words we know and can properly use the more knowledge we have of this you can be sure a person's knowledge and his language go together it is almost impossible for one to be larger than the other now studying the English language as well as learning new words that is learning the parts of speech what they mean and how they should be constructed into sentences all depends on your present knowledge right now mentally rate yourself on the use of the language would you say your rating would be excellent good fair or poor poor if you rated yourself excellent you're in the top on10th of 1% of the population if you said good you're definitely already in the top 5% if you rated yourself Fair get a good book on English at your bookstore and if you rated yourself as poor take a home study course in English many excellent courses are available impress on your youngsters the importance of knowing their language there are probably about 300 million people on Earth who speak English as their main language couple this with a number of people who know English as a second language and you come up with the impressive fact that more people speak English than any other language with the possible exception of Chinese English literature from Cher to Elliot from Shakespeare to Hemingway is the richest and most extensive on Earth so when you're studying English you're studying one of the world's greatest and most interesting subjects if you think you don't have time to study listen to what Lewis Shores had to say about this each of us must find our own 15minute period each day for reading it's better if it's regular the only requirement is the will to read with it you can find 15 minutes no matter how busy the day that means you will read half a book a week two books a month 20 books a year and a thousand in a reading lifetime it's an easy way to become well read yes it is an easy way to become well read well educated and it takes just 15 minutes a day now let's get to the second Point our area of Interest everyone has something in which he's interested we should read about things we should know to help us in our careers whether a person is a Salesman doctor architect or housewife once we have a regular program going along to improve our knowledge of our language we should begin a systematic study of the field which interests us most and which will help us reach our goal just that much sooner this is reading for profit and we should read for pleasure as well each of us should know something of world history the history of our own country and the story of man himself in the world of today and tomorrow a good home library is vital those without it are going to find themselves seriously and unnecessarily handicapped books are not an expense item really they're an investment and one of the best on Earth they pay us dividends out of all proportion to their small cost not just in pleasure and knowledge but in cash as TV Smith has written books extend our narrow present back to the Limitless past they show us the mistakes of the men before us and share with us recipes for human success there's nothing to be done which books will not help us to do better trying to live without constantly expanding our knowledge is to close our eyes not just to the whole purpose of life but to The Facts of Life as well never before has the world moved as rapidly as it's moving today we must make up our minds to move with it to stay with it to grow and prosper with it not just because it's the best way to our goals but because it's the way to really enjoy living as the skilled athlete enjoys his sport so often a person will live in the shallows from force of Abit or because those around him are wasting their time without realizing that only a thin screen of reads separates him from the fine deep ocean Beyond he can sail to any port of his choosing if he will only take the time and expend the effort to build a good boat now let me make an important point the person who knows where he's going and who's made up his mind to get there is going to make the grade regardless of his education if an education is necessary to the accomplishment of his goal he'll get it I know an Italian who came to this country penales and who still can't speak English above the fourth grade level who's made Millions as I've mentioned before nothing in the world can take the place of persistence and determination but I think it's important to succeed in every Department of our life and becoming well educated is one of the most vital what good is a large material success if a person has remained too ignorant to enjoy it or too intelligently administer it now let's recap knowledge is power the more our knowledge the more power we can EX ize over our lives and our futures think of human society as a pyramid composed of layers beginning with a broad base and narrowing to a pinnacle at the top pick the place on the pyramid you're going to shoot for and start climbing since there's far too much knowledge for any one person to assimilate where can we start first with our language and next with our general area of Interest two subjects which can keep us growing and interested for the rest of our lives remember that our vocabulary is the one thing we cannot hide except by silence let's bring it up to the point where it can do the job for us we want it to do to a surprising extent our ability to use our language our vocabulary will determine our income and our future let's spend at least 15 minutes every day reading something not only interesting but calculated to stretch our minds a little more remember that a mind stretched by a new idea can never again return to its original Dimensions it's estimated that the average person adds only only five new words a year to his vocabulary that's not nearly enough for this day and age we should add that many a week and finally realize that leaving school is just the beginning the commencement of our days and years of learning for with wisdom will come kindness patience love understanding and success as a person it's almost never too late to begin the word today in the title is meant literally we talked about the necessity of having a goal toward which we're working that since the definition of success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal it's impossible to be successful without knowing where we're going what it is we're working toward one of the purposes of this message is to ask you to reaffirm your goal or if you still haven't settled upon one to do so now and to tell you of a way that works wonderfully in achieving your goals one after another in the years ahead a goal sometimes seems too far off and our progress often appears so painfully slow that we have a tendency to lose heart it sometimes seems that we'll never make the grade and we come close to falling back into the old habits which while they may be comfortable now lead to Nowhere now there's a way to beat this it's been used successfully by many of the world's most successful people and it's been advocated by many of the greatest thinkers it's to live one day at a time a lifetime is comprised of days strung together into weeks months and years let's reduce it to its lowest common denominator a single day and then still further to each Act of the day look at it this way a successful life is nothing more than a lot of successful days put together it's going to take so many days to reach your goal if this goal is to be reached in a minimum of time every day must count think of a single day as a build block with which you're building the tower of your life just as a stonemason can only put one stone in place at a time you can only live one day at a time and it's the way in which these stones are placed which will determine the beauty and strength of your Tower if each stone is successfully placed the tower will be a success if on the other hand they're put down in a hit or miss fashion the whole thing's going to be shaky and look pretty bad now this may seem to be a rather Elementary way of looking at it but I want to make make it clear and it's a good and logical way of looking at a human life all right take it then one day at a time from the time we wake up in the morning until we drop off to sleep again at night now each day consists of a series of Acts acts of all kinds and the success of a day depends upon the successful completion of each of these acts if everything we do during the day is a success that is done in the best fashion of which we're capable we can fall asleep that night in the comfortable knowledge that we've done our very best that our day has been a success that one more Stone has been successfully put into place now this is the way to really live do each day all that can be done that day you don't need to overwork or to rush blindly into your work trying to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time it's not the number of things you do necessarily but the efficiency of each separate action that counts gradually you'll find yourself increasing the number of Acts and perform them all much more efficiently to get the habit of success and that's why successful people go from one success to another because it's a habit with them to get the habit of success you need only to succeed in each small act each day this makes a successful day enough of these and you have a successful week month year and lifetime this is why I say success is not a matter of luck far from it it can be absolutely predicted and guaranteed and anyone can achieve it by following this plan almost before you realize it you'll have achieved your goal in looking back you'll realize that your success was not attributable to any one day week or month but rather it was the consistent unrelenting successful succession of single days that turned the trick this is the way a skyscraper a home or a human life is successfully built one successful day at a time and each day one successful act at a time in order to advance to the place you've chosen two things are necessary one that you keep your eye on your goal and two that you outgrow your present size as a person I don't mean this last from the standpoint of weight but rather of competence ability don't get impatient don't let the hundreds of little distractions which each day try to get your off course bother you pay no attention to them shake them off and stay steadily on the track concentrate on each Act of the day from morning to night and do each successfully know full well that if each of your acts has perform successfully or at least the great majority of them your life has to be successful there's no other answer there's no way on Earth to avoid it the person who is certain to advance is the one who's too big for his job and who has a clear concept of what he wants to be who knows that he can become what he wants to become and who is determined to be what he wants to be remind yourself at this time that people become exactly what they make up their minds to become and who never deviate from their chosen goal are you too big for your present job if it's obvious to you that you are it's obvious to others actually people are not given promotions as a rule they promote themselves by becoming too big for their jobs and by making up their minds exactly what bigger and better job or income they're shooting for and this is done by taking one day at a time and one act at a time during each day but how do we separate the important acts from the unimportant did you ever hear of the single idea for which a man was paid $25,000 it was worth every penny of it this is a true story it's been told many times since it occurred and it's worth telling again Charles Schwab who was then president of the Bethlehem Steel company had granted an interview to an efficiency expert named Ivy Lee Lee was telling Mr Schwab how his firm could help him do a better job of managing the company and Mr Schwab broke in to say something to the effect that he wasn't managing as well now as he knew to he went on to tell Ivy Lee that what was needed wasn't more knowing but a lot more doing he said we know what we should be doing now if you can show us a better way of getting it done I'll listen to you and pay you anything within reason you ask Lee then said that he could give him something in 20 minutes that would increase his action by at least 50% he then handed Charles Schwab a blank sheet of paper and said write down on this paper the six most important things you have to do tomorrow Mr Schwab did and it took about 3 minutes Lee then said now number them in the order of their importance to you and the company that took about 5 minutes and then Lee said now put the paper in your pocket and the first thing tomorrow morning take it out and look at item number one don't look at the others just number one and start working on it and stay with it until it's completed then take item number two the same way then number three and so on until you quit for the day don't worry if you've only finished one or two you'll be working on the most important ones the others just can wait if you can't finish them all by this method you couldn't have finished them with any other method and without some system you'd probably take 10 times as long to finish them and might not even have them in the order of their importance do this every working day Lee went on after you've convinced yourself of the value of this system have your men try it try it as long as you like and then send me your check for whatever you think the idea is worth well the entire interview hadn't taken more than a half hour in a few weeks Mr Schwab sent Ivy Lee a check for $25 $5,000 with a letter saying the lesson was the most profitable from a money standpoint that he had ever learned in his life and it was later said that in 5 years this was the plan that was largely responsible for turning what was then a little known Steel company into the biggest independent steel producer in the world it also helped make Charles Schwab a $100 million one idea the idea of taking things one at a time in their proper order of staying with one act until it successfully completed before going on to the next of living one day at a time for the next 30 days try the $25,000 idea in your own life tonight write on a slip of paper the six most important things you have to do then number them in the order of their importance tomorrow morning go to work on number one and stay with it until it's successfully completed then move to number two and so on when you finished with all six get another piece of paper and repeat the process you'll be amazed and delighted at the order it brings into your life and at the new rate of speed with which you'll be able to accomplish the things that need doing in the order of their importance this simple but tremendously effective method will take all the confusion out of your life you'll never find yourself running around in circles wondering what to do next remember as you do to live the best you can one day at a time you need not worry about tomorrow or the next day or what's going to happen at the end of the month one day at a time handled successfully will carry you over every hurdle it'll solve every problem you can relax and a Happ knowledge that successful acts make successful days which in turn make a successful life this is the kind of unassailable logic no one can argue with it'll work every time for every person so often youngsters in school worry about a passing grade they think of all they'll have to do before the end of the school year they can stop wearing completely and count on excellent grades by following this course of action freshmen in high school and college are frequently plagued by doubts as to whether or not they'll be able to successfully complete the four years ahead and graduate four years seem like such a long time to them almost forever and sometimes leads to a sort of giving up a fear of failure it was the great Harvard teacher and psychologist William James who said in effect let no student worry about the success of his efforts if he will do each day as best he can the work which is before him he'll wake up one day to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation student housewife older person or bread winner this plan removes doubt fear and worry all any of us needs to do is face each day as it comes in good cheer knowing that we have only to succeed today to guarantee our future in this way we'll move steadily ahead growing more competent more confident with the passing of every day others may seem to suddenly shoot up faster and possibly fall much farther and operate in spurts and fits but it's to the steady that the rewards are eventually paid St Edmund of Canterbury was right when he said to somebody work as though you would live forever but live as though you would die today try writing down the six most important things you have to do then number them in the order of their importance first thing tomorrow morning tackle number one and stay with it until it's completed if something should force its delay move on to number two but take them in order and finish them in order as best you can don't get sidetracked by people or things in successfully accomplishing each Act of your day there's nothing mysterious or capricious about achieving outstanding success it's completely within our individual control and is absolutely predictable it is simply a matter of doing certain things a certain way every day that's all there is to it there is no valid reason on Earth why you should not become really successful in your field your home life and your community remember that everything everything in the entire Limitless Universe operates on the law of cause and effect there are no exceptions to this nothing happens by accident for every result there is a cause you have only to take care of the cause the effect will always without exception take care of itself good cause good effect no cause no effect bad cause bad effect it's as reliable as the rising of the sun this business of living one day at a time the best we can has an almost unbelievable cumulative effect for good for success in the things we want sometimes when we see a brick layer starting on a building and putting the first brick in place Place were struck by the size of the job he has ahead of him but one day almost before we realize it he's finished all the hundreds of bricks are in place each one vital to the finished structure each one sharing its portion of the load and so should be the days of a human life and we'll be proud and happy with the finished product let's talk about the man on the White Horse every business from the smallest to the very largest needs a leader they have their committees their echelons of command and perhaps a widely dispersed group of semi-autonomous Divisions but the overall company and each of its divisions must have strong and able leadership contrary to popular belief you do not raise morale in an organization it filters down from the top the attitudes of the people working in any organization will always reflect the attitude of the leader and finally this leader will always be found to be a single person I'm sure you're aware that even the largest and oldest companies with many thousands of employees and hundreds of management people will when they find themselves in trouble or not doing as well as they should seek out one man and place him in the position of final Authority the whole company the board of directors and perhaps millions of stockholders all look to this one man for leadership and success he then is the man on the White Horse wherever you find a going concern whether it's a gas station Supermarket sales or service company or manufact facturing concern you'll find behind its success the man on the White Horse this is the most valuable man in the country he makes the wheels turn the entire economy work this is the man who's been responsible for the growth of the country and our position in the world he's the employer of millions the dreamer the planner and a clock to him is something other people watch you'll find him working early and late and when he's not working he's usually thinking about what he's going to do tomorrow back during the Depression of the 30s the phrase most often heard by employers was I'll do anything Millions were unemployed thousands of business firms had closed their doors and outside employment offices long lines of people stood waiting for any kind of work it was during this time in Long Beach California crowded to overflowing with the thousands who had migrated there looking for work when there wasn't enough to go around for the permanent residence that a friend of mine made an interesting Discovery he found that he could go to work almost anywhere he wanted to amazing as this may sound it's true it dawned upon him one day that the business establishments of various kinds were just as anxious to succeed as were the people looking for work these business owners and managers were worried and concerned about the hard times which had descended upon the country and a great many of them were looking for the man on the White Horse The Man Who Would somehow show up and solve all or most of their business problems but all they heard was people asking for work and saying I'll do anything these people were asking for something from a man who was very like ly teetering on the brink of financial ruin himself and so signs appeared in Windows all over the land reading no help wanted this was a negative form of advertising and while it kept the plaintive hordes away from the door it hurt business well this friend of mine decided to become the man on the White Horse his method was simple and it worked like a charm he selected the business he felt he would like to work for and in which he could build his career he then devoted a month to finding out all he could about this business he talked to other people in the same line he heard their problems and what they felt was wrong he even posed as a man in the same business from out of town and talked for hours asking questions about what they felt was needed and so on he went to the public library and read everything he could find on this business then he began to think of ways and means by which this business might be improved when he was ready and finally made his call on the company for which he had decided to work instead of asking for a job he said something like this I believe I know of several ways in which your business can be greatly increased and I'd like to talk to you about them here he was selling the one thing on earth in which his Prospect was most interested the fact that he now knew a good deal about the man's problems permitted him to talk intelligently he took a positive attitude expressed a willingness to pitch in and help the man put his business on a sound and profitable footing and that's right he got the job Millions out of work and asking for jobs but one man who found a way to be of help what had he done well first he had specialized he had selected one line of work and decided that this was where his future would best be placed now he had to prove himself and he did the Jack of all trades and master of none was the man who suffered during the Depression people who knew what they were doing and where they were going sailed through those Depression years just as a large Ship Sails through a storm it wasn't as comfortable as it could have been but at least the crossing was a success at least they didn't founder and go down and many businesses actually grew larger the best way in the world for you to develop the security that lasts a lifetime is to become outstanding at one particular line of work look at it this way regardless of economic ups and downs the industry of which this line of work is a part will continue to operate and to grow it won't shut down completely as long as you're in the top 5% of the people in that industry you'll know you'll always be the man on the White Horse not just where that industry is concerned but where you and your family are concerned also the person who becomes truly outstanding at his specialty actually has the World on a String here's the man of confidence and peace of mind here's the man who is quietly aware of his outstanding ability and intimate knowledge of his job in his particular industry here's the professional he's got it made and he and everybody else knows it now ask yourself this question am I now such a person down deep inside you know the answer if you answered yes you're among the most fortunate people and in one of the smallest and most elite groups on Earth if your answer was no it can be turned into a yes in a surprisingly short time the first step in becoming a man on the White Horse is to make one really big and important decision it's a decision the great majority of working people never make and suffer as a result failing to make this decision keeps a person from ever really getting on course or clarifying his goals if you will make the decision I'm now going to recommend you can take a deep breath give a comfortable sigh of relief fix your eyes firmly upon your Target and go to work relaxed comfortable and sure in the knowledge that the success you seek will be yours it's the decision to build your career in the work in which you now find yourself that regardless of the job you now hold you're standing right in the middle of your own Acres of diamonds if you'll only look for them the great steel magnet Andrew Carnegie when asked the formula for success answered put all your eggs in one basket then watch the basket let's be frankly realistic who gets laid off work during an economic slump well what gets thrown over the side when an airplane or ship is in danger of going down everything not absolutely vital to the operation of The Craft and the safety of the passengers it's the same with a business its main purpose is to remain in business forever as long as it remains in business it can provide a needed product or service protect the investment of those who have faith in it and provide jobs for those who are vital to its continuity of operation it is the duty of management to protect the firm and the people who depend upon it just as it's the captain's duty to do everything in his power to keep his airplane flying or his ship sailing all a person needs to do is make certain he is a vital part of his business and industry those who insist on remaining spare gear must expect to be jettisoned when things get too rough for safety nobody particularly the captain likes to see cargo going over the side but if it will help save the ship there's simply nothing else to do this is why people are laid off it has nothing to do with management and Labor Relations or personalities and in the long run it's the best for everyone since once smooth sailing has again been reached additional employment can again be made available each of us must decide whether we want to be cargo or a member of the crew believe me this is an individual choice in everyone's case it's said that Millions today suffer from a malady called panophobia panophobia means fear of everything it's an uneasy feeling a feeling of insecurity and generally manifests itself as a sort of lump of fear that settles right behind the belt buckle especially on Sunday afternoon or evening and on Monday mornings there's nothing you can put your finger on it's just apprehension a feeling of forboding and this extremely unpleasant condition is said to result from the unspoken but realized fact that we're being paid for more than we're really earning it's the Perfectly Natural and normal understanding deep within each of us that there's something basically wrong about getting paid more than we're worth that we're being paid for something we're not doing as well as we possibly can if we have panophobia running does no good we find it follows us on vacation and around the house and yard on weekends it's inside of us and no matter how fast the jet we board or exciting the television program we're watching soon were aware of it again as its fingers once again tighten their grip there's a simple cure for this malady it's to throw ourselves not out of a window but into our work it's the decision to be worth more than we're being paid for only in this way can we grow it's overbalancing the scales in the service end knowing that the rewards must follow as a natural result anyone who will be honest with himself realizes that he has been happiest and most satisfied after having completed successfully a difficult job well so much for that we've got the greatest country economy and form of government on Earth we need leaders more than ever before but what is a leader a leader is any individual who can help and Lead others it's the conscientious mother who wants her children to be raised knowing the rules for success and happiness it's the father who shows by example that any job worth doing is worth doing well it's the farmer whose farm sets an example in his area and the small businessman whose business continues to grow and prosper with the passing years it's the employee who has the good sense to realize he owes loyalty and dedication to the firm That Pays His wages and who discharges that responsibility by becoming the uncommon employee the one whom the company can completely trust and take pride in a leader is any person who realizes the importance of becoming a bigger and better person with the passing of every week and month a leader takes the responsibility for his own growth he's a planner a think a doer each of us can become the man on the White Horse in the area in which we find ourselves it's not difficult and in the long run it's easier for us and on us than what at first may appear to be the easier of two courses simply fix your eye upon your goal visualize it with every ounce of your being and set out toward it maintain a cheerful helpful attitude toward everyone why shouldn't you be cheerful since you know you'll achieve everything upon which you've set your heart become a kind of sponge for information which will help you on your way you don't have to waste years making the mistakes others have made before you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll reach your goal but don't be impatient know and have faith that what should come to you will come to you in the right time everything in the world works on the side of the person who works with nature's laws and above all if you should forget everything else remember that everything about you everything you will ever have know or experience in any way operates as the result of law law that is true and unchanging the law of the stars and of the balance of the world as Emerson wrote let him learn a Prudence of a higher strain let him learn that everything in nature even dust and Feathers go by law and not by luck and that what he SWS he reaps that's it that's all there is to it look about you now take stock of your present situation for it's nothing more nor less than the result of your past sewing are you happy with it is it what you want then you know what you must sew today and tomorrow and the next day and in sewing rest in the calm Serene and cheerful certainty that having sown you will then reap the rich results may I suggest that you play these messages often in the months and years ahead perhaps at a quiet time just before going to bed or first thing in the morning even years from now you and your family will get something new from each message each time you hear it this is because you're constantly changing your problems needs and goals change and as they do you'll find the new answers you'll need do this and you will leave the earth a better place because you pass this way at many speaking engagements I've referred to the words of Albert Ian gray and his speech the common denominator of success years of experience as a successful executive help Mr Gray to find answers to the questions you've probably asked yourself questions like how can I avoid failure in this new career how can I manage to succeed in my interesting new profession Mr Gray crystallized his thoughts about these common but important doubts that we all experience at some time during our lives and he Incorporated them into a speech called the common denominator of success because his thoughts have importance for every thinking person I want to share them with you now I've taken the liberty of substituting a few phrases to help each of us relate to Mr Grace remarkable message more personally Mr Gray said several years ago I was brought face to face with the very disturbing realization that I was trying to supervise and direct the efforts of a large number of people who were trying to achieve success without knowing myself what the secret of success really was and that naturally brought me face to face with the further realization that regardless of what other knowledge I might have brought to my job I was definitely lacking in the most important knowledge of all of course like most of us I've been brought up on the the popular belief that the secret of success is hard work but I'd seen so many men work hard without succeeding and so many men succeed without working hard that I'd become convinced that hard work was not the real secret even though in most cases it might be one of the requirements and so I set out on a voyage of discovery which carried me through biographies and autobiographies and all sorts of dissertations on success and the lives of successful men and women until I finally reached the point at which I realized that the secret I was trying to discover lay not only in what people did but also in what made them do it I realized further that the secret for which I was searching must not only apply to every definition of success but since it must apply to everyone to whom it was offered it must also apply to everyone who had ever been successful in short I was looking for the common denominator of success and because that's exactly what I was looking for that's exactly what I found but this common denominator of success is so big so powerful and so vitally important to your future in mind that I'm not going to make a speech about it I'm just going to lay it on the line in words of one syllable so simple that anybody can understand them the common denominator of success The Secret of success of every person who has ever been successful lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do now it's just as true as it sounds and it's just as simple as it seems you can hold it up to the light you can put it to the acid test and you can kick it around until it's worn out but when you're all through with it it will still be the common denominator of success whether we like it or not it will still explain why people have gone into a business or profession with every apparent qualification for success and have been nothing but disappointing failures While others have achieved outstanding success in spite of many obvious handicaps and since it will also explain your future it would seem to be a mighty good idea for you to use it in determining just what sort of a future you're going to have in other words let's take this big all embracing secret and boil it down to fit you if the secret of success lies in forming the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do let's start the boiling down process by determining what are the things that failures don't like to do the things that failures don't like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings including successful people naturally don't like to do in other words we've got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by the minority of persons and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being Guided by our natural preferences and prejudices the things that failures don't like to do in general are too many and too obvious for us to discuss them here and so since our success and every Endeavor lies in our ability to persuade others to to do what we'd like them to do let's move on to a discussion of the things we don't like to do now here too the things we don't like to do are too many to permit a specific discussion but I think they can all be disposed of by saying that they all emanate from one basic dislike common to all of us we don't like to talk to people about something they might not want to talk about any reluctance to approach someone to suggest a change in his activity to persuade him to take a new approach is caused by this one basic dislike perhaps you've wondered what's behind this peculiar lack of welcome on the part of those we're trying to persuade isn't it due to the fact that our prospects are human too and isn't it true that the average human being is highly resistant to change even when it's for his own Improvement and is therefore prone to escape our efforts to persuade him to do something he thinks he doesn't want to do by striking at the most important weakness we possess namely our desire to be appreciated perhaps you've been discouraged by a feeling that you were born subject to certain dislikes peculiar to you with which successful people are not Afflicted perhaps you've wondered why it is that those who accomplish most seem to like to do the things that you don't like to do they don't and I think this is the most important and encouraging statement I've ever offered to any person but if they don't like to do these things then why do they do them because by doing the things they don't like to do they can accomplish the things they want to accomplish now let me repeat that successful people are influenced by the desire for pleasing results failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods and are inclined to be satisfied with such results as can be obtained by doing things they like to do why are successful people able to do the things they don't like to do while failures are not because successful people have a strong purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don't like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish sometimes even the best producers get into a slump when a person gets into a slump it simply means that he's reached a point at which for the time being the things he doesn't like to do have become more important than his reasons for doing them many people with whom I've discussed this common denominator of success have said at this point but I have a family to support and I have to make a living for my family and myself isn't that enough of a purpose no it isn't it isn't a sufficiently strong purpose to make you form the habit of doing the things you don't like to do for the very simple reason that it is easier to adjust ourselves to the hardships of a poor living than it is to adjust ourselves to the hardships of making a better one if you doubt me just think of all the things you're willing to go without in order to avoid doing the things you don't like to do all of which seems to prove that the strength which holds you to your purpose is not your own strength but the strength of the purpose itself now let's see why habit belongs so importantly in this common denominator of success people are creatures of habit just as machines are creatures of momentum for habit is nothing more nor less than momentum translated from the concrete into the abstract can you picture the problem that would face our mechanical engineers if there were no such thing as momentum speed would be impossible because the highest speed at which any vehicle could be m moved would be at the first speed at which it could be broken away from a standstill elevators could not be made to rise airplanes could not be made to fly and the entire world of mechanics would find itself in a total state of helplessness then who are you and I to think that we can do with our own human nature what the finest engineers in the world could not do with the finest Machinery that was ever built every single qualification for success is acquired through habit people form habits and habits form Futures if you don't deliberately form good habits then unconsciously you'll form bad ones you're the kind of person you are because you formed the habit of being that kind of person and the only way you can change is through changing habits the success habit for any area of achievement can be divided into four main groups one contacting habits two calling habits three persuading habits four working habits now let's disc discuss these habit groups in their order any successful person will tell you that it's easier to persuade someone to a particular course of action than to find someone who already wants to do it but if you have not deliberately formed the habit of contacting those who need what you're offering regardless of their wants then unconsciously you form the habit of limiting your contacts to those people who already want what you have to offer and there in lies the one and only real reason for allowing of interested context as to calling habits unless you've deliberately formed the habit of calling on people who are able to do what you want them to do but who may be unwilling to listen then unconsciously you form the habit of calling on people who are willing to listen but unable to do what you want them to do as to persuasion habits unless you have deliberately formed the habit of calling on people determined to help them see why it is in their interest to take a particular course of action then unconsciously you form the habit of calling on people while you're in a state of mind in which you are willing to let them make you see their reasons for not going along with you as to working habits if you'll take care of the other three groups the working habits will generally take care of themselves because under working habits are included study and preparation organization of time and effort records analyses and so forth and certainly you're not going to take the trouble to learn the best approach to your presentation unless you're going to use use it you're not going to plan your day's activities when you know in your heart that you're not going to carry out your plans and you're certainly not going to keep an honest record of things you haven't done or of results you haven't achieved so let's not worry so much about the fourth group of success habits because if you're taking care of the first three groups most of the working habits will take care of themselves but before you decide to adopt these success habits let me warn you of the importance of habit to your decision I've attended many meetings and rallies during the past years and I've often wondered why in spite of the fact that there's so much good in them so many men and women seem to get so little lasting good out of them perhaps you've attended such meetings in the past and have left these meetings determined to do the things that would make you successful or more successful only to find your decision or determination waning at just the time when it should be put into effect or practice well here's the answer any resolution or decision you make is simply a promise to yourself which isn't worth a tinker's Dam until you formed the the habit of making it and keeping it and you won't form the habit of making it and keeping it unless right at the start you link it with a definite purpose that can be accomplished by keeping it in other words any resolution or decision you make today has to be made again tomorrow and the next day and the next and the next and so on and it not only has to be made each day but it has to be kept each day for if you miss one day in the making or keeping of it you've got to go back and begin all over again but if you continue the process of making it each morning and keeping it each day you will finally wake up some morning a different person in a different world and you will wonder what has happened to you and the world you used to live in well here's what's happened your resolution or decision has become a habit and you don't have to make it on this particular morning and the reason for your seeming like a different man or woman living in a different world lies in the fact that for the first time in your life you've become master of yourself and master of your likes and dislikes by surrendering to your purpose in life that's why behind every success there must be a purpose and that's what makes purpose so important to your future for in the last analysis your future is not going to depend on economic conditions or outside influences or circumstances over which you have no control your future is going to depend on your purpose in life so let's talk about purpose first of all your purpose must be practical and not Visionary some time ago I talked with a man who thought he had a purpose which was more important to him than income he was interested in the sufferings of his fellow man and he wanted to be placed in a position to alleviate that suffering but when we analized his real feelings we discovered and he admitted it that what he really wanted was a real nice job dispensing charity with other people's money and being well paid for it along with the appreciation and feeling of importance that would naturally go with such a job but in making your purpose practical be careful not to make it logical make it a purpose of the sentimental or emotional type remember that needs are logical while wants and desires are sentimental and emotional your needs will push you just so far but when your needs are satisfied they'll stop pushing you if however your purpose is in terms of wants or desires well then your wants and desires will keep pushing you long after your needs are satisfied and until your wants and desires are fulfilled recently I was talking with a young man who long ago discovered the common denominator of success without identifying his Discovery he had a definite purpose in life and it was definitely a Sentimental or emotional purpose he wanted his boy to go through college without having to work his way through as he had done he wanted to avoid for his little girl the hardships which his own sister had had to face in her childhood and he wanted his wife to enjoy the luxuries and Comforts and even Necessities which had been denied his own mother and he was willing to form the habit of doing things he didn't like to do in order to accomplish this purpose and not to discourage him but rather to have him encourage me I said to him aren't you going a little too far with this thing there's no logical reason why your son shouldn't be willing and able to work his way through college just as his dad did of course he'll miss many of the things that you missed in your college life and he'll probably have heartaches and disappointments but if he's any good he'll come through in the end just as you did and there's no logical reason why you should slave in order that your daughter may have things which your own sister wasn't able to have or in order that your wife can enjoy Comforts and luxuries that she wasn't used to before she married you well he looked at me with a rather pitying look and said but there's no inspiration in logic there's no courage in logic there's not even happiness in logic there's only satisfaction the only place logic has in my life is in the realization that the more I'm willing to do for my wife and children the more I shall be able to do for myself well I imagine after hearing that story you won't have to be told out of find your purpose or how to identify it or how to surrender to it if it's a big purpose you'll be big in its accomplishment if it's an unselfish purpose you'll be unselfish in accomplishing it and if it's an honest purpose you'll be honest and honorable in the accomplishment of it but as long as you live don't ever forget that while you may succeed beyond your fondest hopes and your greatest expectations you will never succeed beyond the purpose to which you're willing to surrender for furthermore your surrender will not be complete until you form the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do in the fine book the revolution of Hope toward a humanized technology by Eric FR Dr from points out that a spectre is standing in our midst whom only a few see with Clarity it's not the old ghost of Communism or fism it's a new Spectre a completely mechanized Society devoted to maximum material output and consumption directed by computers and in this social process man himself is being transformed into a part of the total machine wellfed and entertained yet passive un alive and with little feeling with the victory of the new Society individualism and privacy will have disappeared feelings toward others will be engineered by psychological conditioning and other devices or drugs which also serve a new kind of introspective experience this new for society has been predicted in the form of fiction in Orwell's 1984 and Aldis huxley's Brave New World he goes on to write perhaps its most ominous aspect at present is that we seem to lose control over our own system we execute the decisions which our computer calculations make for us we as human beings have no aims except producing and consuming more and more we will nothing nor do we not will anything and explaining how it happened Dr from says in the search for scientific truth man came across knowledge that he could use for the domination of Nature and he had tremendous success but in a one-sided emphasis on technique and material consumption man lost touch with himself with life having lost religious faith and the humanistic values bound up with it he concentrated on Technical and material values and lost the capacity for deep emotional experience for the joy and sadness that accompany them the machine he built became so powerful that it developed its own program which now determines man's own thinking Dr PR says in short that we have become the prisoners of our own Creations we've seen this in the fact that an innocent nuclear accident could easily trigger the total Destruction of much of the modern world our technological monsters dare us to make a single misstep and in other forms they dominate in our daily lives and much of it is good much of it is a whole lot better than it used to be few of us want to return to the world of the 30s and 4S or even to the 50s we've learned to like our masters but we need to be aware of the destructive influences which are a part of living in that kind of world leis Mumford in His Brilliant book The Myth of the machine makes a complete description of what he calls the mega machine going clear back to the beginnings in ancient Egyptian and Babylonian societies I think it is time for us to become aware of the general disillusionment that's growing in the land and understand as does Dr from that we'd best get rid of or modify the oldfashioned belief of the 19th century that the machine will help lighten Man's Burden that it will remain a means to an end and see the danger that if technology is permitted to follow its own logic it will become a cancer-like growth eventually threatening the structured system of individual and social life however as Mumford points out each one of us as long as life stirs in him may play a part in extricating himself from the power system by asserting his Primacy as a person in quiet acts of mental or physical withdrawal in gestures of nonconformity in abstentions restrictions inhibitions which will liberate him from the domination of the Pentagon of power he writes if I dare to foresee a promising future other than that which the technocrats the power elite have been confidently extrapolating is because I found by personal experience that it's far easier to detach oneself from the system and to make a selective use of its facilities then the promoters of the affluent society would have their docile subjects Bel though no immediate and complete escape from the ongoing power system is possible least of all through Mass violence the changes that will restore autonomy and initiative to the human person all lie within the province of each individual soul once it is roused let me hit that again though no immediate and complete escape from the ongoing power system is possible least of all through Mass violence the changes that will restore autonomy and initiative to the human person all lie within the province of each individual soul once it roused nothing could be more damaging to the myth of the machine and to the dehumanized social order it's brought into existence than a steady withdrawal of Interest a slowing down of tempo a stoppage of Senseless routines and Mindless acts and has not all this in fact begun to happen when the moment comes to replace power with plenitude compulsive external rituals with internal self-imposed discipline depersonalization with individuation automation with autonomy we shall mind that the necessary change of attitude and purpose has been going on beneath the surface during the last century and the long buried seeds of a richer human culture are now ready to strike root and grow as soon as the ice breaks up and the Sun reaches them if that growth is to prosper it will draw freely on the compost from many previous cultures when the power complex itself becomes sufficiently etherealized its formative Universal ideas will become usable again passing on its intellect ual Vigor and its discipline once applied mainly to the management of things to the management and enrichment of man's whole subjective existence and Mumford goes on to write as long as man's life prospers there's no limit to its possibilities no terminous to its creativity for it's part of the essential nature of man to transcend the limits of his own biological nature and to be ready if necessary to die in order to make such Transcendence possible behind the picture of fresh human Poss possibilities I've been drawing all through the myth of the machine he writes is a profound truth to which almost a century ago William James gave expression he said when from our present Advanced standpoint we look back upon past stages of human thought were're amazed that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication should ever have seemed to anyone so little and plain a thing there's nothing in the spirit and principles of science that need Hindu s from dealing successfully with a world in which personal forces are the starting point of new effects the only form of thing we directly encounter the only experience that we concretely have is our own personal life the only complete category of our thinking our professors of philosophy tell us is the abstract elements of that and this systematic Denial on science's part of the personality as a condition of events this rigorous belief that in its own essential and innermost nature our world is a strictly impersonal world may conceivably as the whir gig of time goes round Prov to be the very defect that our descendants will be most surprised at in our boasted science the Omission that to their eyes will most tend to make it look perspectiv less and short well the whiring of time has gone round and what James applied to science applies equally to our compulsive deep personalized power-driven techn techology we now have sufficient historic perspective to realize that this seemingly self- automated mechanism has like the old automatic chess player a men concealed in the works and we know that the system is not directly derived from nature as we find it on Earth or in the sky but has features that at every Point bear the stamp of the human mind partly rational partly cretinous partly demonic no outward tinkering will improve this overpowered Civilization now plainly in the final and fossilized stage of its materialization nothing will produce an effective change but the fresh transformation that has already begun in the human mind those who are unable to accept William James perception that the human person has always been the starting point of mu effect effect and that the most solid seeming structures and institutions must collapse as soon as the formative ideas that have brought them into existence begin to dissolve are the real profits of Doom on the terms imposed by technocratic Society the no hope for mankind except by going along with its plans for Accelerated technological progress even though man's vital organs will all be cannibalized in order to prolong the mega machine's meaningless existence but for those of us who have thrown off the myth of the machine the next move is ours for the gates of the technocratic prison will open automatically despite their Rusty ancient hinges as soon as we choose to walk out by all means Buy and read the myth of the Machine by leis Mumford and the revolution of Hope by Eric from two books which give us better balance could show us first what has caused the modern mes the feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness and purposelessness so prevalent today all about us and tell us what steps we can take as thinking persons to find the freedom we seek the new enthusiasm and excitement and hope and purpose we need our purpose should not be to see how big machine we can build our purpose is human well-being we have to put the human being back in first place where he belongs and end in himself the reason for everything else we should not serve the economy the economy should serve us and it can marvelously if we'll turn the tables on it as Le Mumford writes I have found by personal experience that it's far easier to detach oneself from the system and to make a selective use of it facilities then the promoters of the affluent society would have their docile subjects believe in explaining the possibility of restoring the social system to man's control Dr Eric from bases his hopes on two main factors the first is that the Primacy of man himself be reinjected into the analysis of the whole system based on the assumption that human well-being is the overriding goal and secondly the increasing dissatisfaction with our present way of life it's past iveness and Silent boredom its lack of privacy and its depersonalization and the longing for a joyful meaningful existence which answers those specific needs of man which he has developed in the last few thousand years of his history and which make him different from the animal as well as from the computer this tendency is all the stronger because the affluent part of the population has already tasted full material satisfaction and has found out that the consumer's Paradise does not deliver the happy as it promised the poor of course have not yet had any chance to find out except by watching the lack of Joy Of Those Who quote have everything a man could want end of quote our society has done a truly remarkable job it's no wonder we fell in love with our technological discoveries riding in a warm comfortable automobile On a Winter's day is a whole lot better than sitting on the back of a horse so let's use the automobile but it's where we're going in the automobile at matters to watch the official version of Earl nightingale's The Strangest Secret check the video right there next to me I think you'll love it continue to believe and I'll see you there I'd like to tell you about The Strangest Secret in the world not long ago Albert schwitzer the Great doctor a Nobel Prize winner was being interviewed in London and a reporter asked him doctor what's wrong with men today
