(tape clicking) (applause) - [Napoleon] Now then let's
break down the lesson on definiteness of purpose and
see exactly what it means. Why it's the starting
point of all achievements, because it is the starting point of all individual achievements. And then, a definite
purpose must be accompanied by a definite plan for entertainment followed by appropriate action. Now you have to have a purpose, you have to have a plan, and you have to start putting
that plan into action. And ladies and gentlemen, it's not too important
that your plan be sound. It isn't, in fact, it's not too important. Because if you find that
you've adopted a plan that's not sound, it's not working, you can always change. You can modify your plan, but it is very important
that you be definite about what it is you're going after, what your purpose is. That must be very definite, can you now think around about it, and you'll see before you
get through this lesson, why it's got to be definite. Now just to understand this philosophy, to read it or to hear me talk about it, it wouldn't be a very much value to you. The value will come when you begin to form your own patterns out of this philosophy and put it into work in your daily lives, in your business, in your profession, or in your job, or in
your human relations, that's where the benefits
will really come. The second premise, all individual achievements
are the results of a motive or a combination of motives. I just love to impress upon you that you have no rights to ask anybody to do anything at any time without what? - [Students] A motive. - [Napoleon] Without giving
that person an adequate motive, and incidentally that's
the word and the move of all salesmanship, the ability to plant in the mind of the prospective buyer, an
adequate motive for his buy. Learning to deal with people
by planting in their mind adequate motives for their doing the things that you want them to do. Now, there are a lot of people
who call themselves salesmen, who have never heard of
the nine basic motives, who do not know that they have
no right to ask for a sale until they have planted a motive in the minds of the buyer for his buying. The third premise, any dominating idea, plan or purpose held in the mind through repetition of thought, any dominating idea, plan
or purpose held in the mind through repetition of thought, and emotionalized with a burning
desire for its realization, is taken over by the
subconscious section of the mind and acted upon through whatever natural and logical means that may be available. Now in that paragraph, you've got a tremendous
lesson in psychology. If you want the mind to pick up an idea, and to form a habit, so that the mind will
automatically act upon that idea, you've got to tell the mind what you want over and over and over again. Know into it. When Mr. Coue came over
here some years ago with his famous formula
day by day in every way, I'm getting better and better, he cured thousands of people
but a very great number more than that he didn't cure. And I wonder if you would know why? - [Student] There was no desire. - [Napoleon] There was no desire, there was no feeling for
the end of that statement. You might just as well blow in the wind as to make a statement, unless you put some feeling back a bit, unless you believe it. And incidentally, if you tell yourself anything often enough, you will get to where you will believe it. Even a lie. (laughs) It is funny, isn't it? But it happens to be true. You know, there are people
who tell a little white lie and sometimes they're
not so white at that, until they get to where they
believe them themselves. Now the subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between right or wrong, it doesn't know the difference
between positive or negative, it doesn't know the difference between a penny or a million dollars. It doesn't know the difference
between success and failure. It'll accept any statement
that you keep repeating to it by thoughts, or by words,
or by any other means. And incidentally, it's up
to you in the beginning to lay out your definite purpose, write it out so that it can be understood, memorize it and start
repeating it day in and day out until your subconscious mind picks it up and automatically acts upon it. Now, this is going to take a little time. You can't expect to undo it overnight, but what you've been doing
to your subconscious mind, where back down through the years, by allowing negative
thoughts to get into it, you can't expect that to happen overnight, but you will find that if you
emotionalize any plan that you send over to your subconscious
mind and repeat it in a state of enthusiasm, and back it
up with a spirit of faith, if you do that, the
subconscious mind not only act more quickly, but
it acts more definitely, and more positively. And the fourth premise, any dominating desire, plan
or purpose which is backed by that state of mind known as faith, is taken over by the
subconscious section of the mind and acted upon immediately. That state of mind ladies and gentlemen, is the only state of mind that
will produce immediate action through the subconscious mind. And when I say faith, I don't have reference
to wishing, or hoping, or mildly believing, I don't have reference
to any of those things. I have reference to a
state of mind where in, whatever it is that you're going to do, you can see it already in a finished act before you even begin. Now, that's pretty positive isn't it? I can truthfully tell you
that not ever in my whole life have I undertaken to do
anything that I didn't do it, unless I got careless
in my desire to do it, and backed away from it, or changed my mind or my mental attitude. I have never failed to do
anything that I made up my mind to do, and I'll tell you that
you can put yourself in a frame of mind where you
can do whatever you make up your mind to do, unless you
weakened as you go along. And so many people do. Now, let's get back to
this fourth premise again, any dominating desire, plan or purpose, which is backed by that
state of mind known as faith, is taken over from the
subconscious section of the mind and acted upon immediately. I don't know for sure,
ladies and gentlemen, but I suspect that there's
a relatively small number of people in the world at any
one time who understand the principle of faith, who really understand it
and know how to apply it. And even if you do understand it, if you don't back it up with
action and make it a part of your habit life, you might
just as well not understand it, because faith without deeds is dead. Faith without action is dead. Faith without absolute
positive belief is dead. I don't know how you're going
to get into results through believing, unless you put some
action back at that belief. And incidentally, if you
tell your mind often enough that you have faith in anything, the time will come when
your subconscious mind will accept that, even if you
tell your mind often enough that you have faith in yourself, have you ever thought what
a nice thing it would be if you had such complete faith
in yourself that you wouldn't hesitate to undertake anything
you wanted to do in life? Have you ever thought
about what are the benefits that would be to you? You know how many people
there are that sell themselves short all the way
through life because they don't have the right amount of
confidence let alone faith? Give a guess as to the percentage. [Students] 98%. - [Napoleon] Well, it's
somewhere between 98 and 100. (laughs) The margin who do is so small
that I wouldn't begin to guess just exactly what it is, but judging by this good
many thousands of people that I've come into
contact with and you know without my telling you
that my audience is, my classes are always above average, judging by those people, I would say that it's well
over 98% of the people who never and our whole lives
develop a sufficient amount of confidence in themselves
to go out and to undertake and to do the things
they wanna do in life. They accept from life
whatever life hands them. Isn't it strangely how nature works. She gives you a set of tools. Everything that you need to
attain all that you can use or aspire to have in this world. She gave you a set of tools, adequate for your every need. And she reward you
bountifully for accepting and using those tools. That's all you have to do, just accept them and use them. She penalizes you beyond compare if you don't accept them and use them. Nature hates vacuums and idleness. She wants everything to be in action. And especially though
she wants the human mind to be in action. The mind is not different from
any other parts of the body, if you don't use it, if
you don't rely upon it, it atrophies and withers away
and finally gets to where anybody can push you around, anybody. And oftentimes you don't have
the willpower to even resist or protest when people push you around. The fifth premise, the power of thought is the
only thing over which any human being has complete
unquestionable means of control, a fact so astounding that it
connotes a close relationship between the mind of man
and infinite intelligence. Now there are only five known
things in the whole universe, ladies and gentlemen, just five, and out of those five, is shaped everything that's in existence, from the smallest electrons
and protons, or matter, on up to the largest
suns that float out there in the heavens, including you and me. Just five things. There's time and there's space, there's energy and there's matter. And those four things would be no good without the fifth thing,
they'd be nothing. Everything would be chaos. You and I never could have
existed without that fifth thing. What do you think it is? (muffled speech) A universal intelligence
and it reflects itself in every blade of grass, everything that grows out of the ground, in all of the electrons
and protons of matter, it reflects itself in space and in time, in everything it is,
there is intelligence. Intelligence operating all the time. And the person who is the
most successful is the one who finds ways and means of
appropriating most of this intelligence through his brain
and putting it into action. This intelligence permeates
the whole universe, space, time, matter,
energy, everything else. And every individual has the
privilege of appropriating to his own use as much of this
intelligence as he chooses. He can only appropriate it by using it, just understanding it or
believing in it is not enough. You've got to put it into
specialized use in some form. And the responsibility of this
course mainly is to give you a pattern, a blueprint by
which you can take possession of your own mind and
put it into operation. All you have to do is
to follow the blueprint. Don't just pick out that part
of it which you like best and discard the other. Take it all as is. The sixth premise, the subconscious section of
the mind appears to be the only doorway of the individual
approach to infinite intelligence. Now, I want you to study
that language very carefully. I said it appears to be, I don't know if it is, I doubt if you do, and I doubt if anyone knows definitely, a lot of people have a lot
of different ideas about it, but from the best intelligence
that I have been able to use, best observations that
I have been able to make through thousands of experiments, it is true that the
subconscious section of the mind is the only doorway of individual approach to infinite intelligence, and it is capable of
influence by the individual through the means described
in this subsequent lessons. The basis of approach is faith based upon definiteness of purpose. Now that is one sentence
that give you the whole key to that paragraph. Faith based upon definiteness of purpose. Do you have any idea why it
is that you don't have as much confidence in yourself as you should have? Have you ever stopped to think about that? Did you ever stop to
think about why it is when you see an opportunity coming along, or what you believe to be
an opportunity you begin to question your ability to
embrace it and use it. Haven't you had that
happen to you many times, does it happen everyday? And if you've had a chance
to be closely associated with people who are very successful, you'll know that that is one thing that they are not bothered by. If they wanna do something,
it never occurs to them they can't do it. I hope that in your association with Napoleon Hill Associates, you'll come to know my
distinguished business associate Mr. W. Clement Stone better
because if I ever saw a man that knows the power of his
mind and is willing to rely upon that mind, Mr. Stone is that man. I don't think Mr. Stone has any worries. I don't believe he would tolerate a worry. I think it would be an
insult to his intelligence if he recognized that
anything would worry him. Why, because he has confidence
in his ability to use his mind and to make that mind
to create the circumstances that he wants created. And that's the condition
and the operation of any successful mind. And that's gonna be the
condition of your mind when you get through with this philosophy, you're gonna be able to project your mind into whatever objective you choose, and you'll be never any
question in your mind as to whether you can do
what you wanna do or not, never a question in the world. (upbeat music) The seventh premise, every brain is both of a
receiving set and the broadcasting station for the vibrations of thought, a fact which explains the
importance of moving with definiteness of purpose
instead of drifting, since the brain may be
so thoroughly charged with the nature of one's purpose, that it will begin to attract the physical or material equivalents of that purpose. Get it into your consciousness
that first radio broadcasting and receiving set was the one that exists in the brain of man. And not only does it
exist in the brain of man, but it exists in a great many animals. I have a couple of Pomeranian dogs, and they know exactly what
I'm thinking sometimes before I know. They're so smart. They can tune in on it. They know when we start
off for an automobile ride, whether they're going,
whether they're not. You don't have to say a word, not a word, because they're in constant
attunement with us. Your mind is sending out
vibrations constantly, and if you're a salesman and
you are going to call on a prospective buyer, the
sale ought to be made before you ever come into
presence of the buyer. Had you ever thought of that? If you're going to do anything
requiring the cooperation of other people, condition
your mind so that you know the other fellow is going to cooperate. Why? First because the plan that
you're going to offer him is so fair and honest
and so beneficial to him that he can't refuse it. In other words, you have a
right to his cooperation. You will be surprised I know, what a change it will be in
people when you convince them to hand over this
broadcasting station of yours, positive thoughts instead
of thoughts of fear. Now, if you want a good
illustration of how this broadcasting station works, you need $1,000 real bad
then you go down to the bank somewhere and you've got
to have that 1000 by a day after tomorrow, they're
going to take the car back, or the furniture or something else. You just have to have that $1,000. Well, the banker can tell
the moment you walk inside the door is that you just have to have it and he doesn't want you to have it. Ain't that funny? No, it's not funny, it's tragic. You carry the matches around
in your pocket oftentimes to set your own house on fire. You broadcast your thoughts
and they precede you, and when you get there you find
that instead of getting the cooperation you went after, the other person who
reflects back to you what, that state of doubt, that state of mind that you set out ahead of it. I used to teach salesmanship, I made my living that way for a long time, while I was doing the
research on this philosophy. And I have taught over 30,000
salesmen many of them now MetLife members of the coveted
Million Dollar Round Table in the life insurance field. And if there is one thing in
this world that has to be sold it's life insurance, nobody
ever buys life insurance. It has to be sold. And the first thing that I taught those people under my direction was
that they must make the sale to themselves before they try
to make it to the other fella. And if they don't do that, they're not going to make a sale. Somebody might buy something from them but they'll never make a sale unless they first make it to themselves. Every brain a broadcasting
station and the receiving set. And you cannot tune that brain
so that they will attract only the positive vibrations
released by other people. That's the point I'm coming
to that I wanted you to get. By habit you can train
your own mind to pick up out of that myriad of
vibrations that are floating out there constantly, train
your mind to pick up only the things that are related to what you want most in life. And how do you do that? Why you do that by keeping
your mind on what you want most in life, your definite major purpose. So this by repetition,
by thoughts, by actions, until finally they brain will not pick up anything not related to that
definiteness of purpose. Now is that a marvelous thought. You're gonna educate your
brain so that it will absolutely refuse to
pick up any vibrations, except those related to what you want. And ladies and gentlemen, when you get your brain
under control like that, you will be on the path,
really and truly on the beam. Now let's see what are
some of the benefits of definiteness of purpose. First of all, definiteness of purpose automatically develop self-reliance, personal initiative,
imagination, enthusiasm, self discipline, and
concentration of effort, all of these being
prerequisites for success of vital importance. Now that's quite an array
of things that you really developed, you developed
through definiteness of purpose. That is to say, knowing what you want, having a plan for getting it, having your mind occupied
mostly with the carrying out of that plan. And if you have to adopt
a plan and unless you're an unusual person, you're
almost sure to adopt some plans that are not going to work so well, when you find that your plan is not right immediately discard it
and get another one, and keep on until you
find one that will work. And in the process of doing this, just remember one thing that
maybe somewhere along the line, that infinite intelligence being
gifted with a great deal of wisdom might have a plan for
you better than the one you had yourself, have an open mind. If you adopt a plan to
carry out your major purpose or a minor purpose and
it doesn't work well, dismiss that plan and ask for guidance from infinite intelligence. You may get that guidance, What can you do to be
sure that you will get it? While you can believe that you'll get it. You can believe that you'll get it, and it's not gonna hurt
if you just say out loud orally that you believe it. I suspect that the creator
can know your thoughts, but I found that if you
express yourself with a lot of enthusiasm, it doesn't hurt any. And I'm sure that it doesn't
hurt in arousing your subconscious mind. When I wrote, "Think and Grow Rich," the original title of it
was "The 13 Steps to Riches" and both the publisher and I knew that that was not a box office title. We had to have a million-dollar title. Well, they went ahead and set the type, set the book up and type, and the publisher kept prodding
me every day to give him the title that I wanted and
I wrote five or 600 titles, there weren't any of them
any good, not any of them. And then one day he scared
the Dickens out of me, he called me up and said, well, he said that tomorrow morning
I've got to have that title. And he said, if you don't have one, I have one that's a humdinger, I said, what is it? He said, we've got to call it
use your noodle and get the Moodle, I said, my goodness, you annoy me. (students laughing) Why is it that, this is a dignified book, and that flipper title, well, that will ruin the book and me too, and he said, whether it will
or not, that's the title, unless you give me a better
one by tomorrow morning. (students laughing) I want you to follow this incident because it's potent with the food for thought, what I'm not telling you. I went in that night
and sat down on my bed as I was going to on the side of the bed, and I had a talk with my
subconscious mind and I said, now look here old sub, you
and I have gone a long way together and you've done
a lot of things for me and some things to me,
thanks to my ignorance. Well, I've gotta have
a million-dollar title and I've gotta have it tonight, do you understand that? I got to talking so loudly
that the man in the apartment above me funked on the floor, and I don't blame him, because I guess he thought I
was quarreling with my wife or something. Well, I really gave the
subconscious mind no doubt, as to what I want. Now I didn't tell him, I didn't tell the subconscious
mind exactly what kind of title, I said it's gotta
be a million-dollar title. I went to bed when I had
charged my subconscious mind until I reached that
psychological moment where I knew it was going to put in what I wanted. And if I hadn't gotten to that point, I'd have been up there
still sitting on the side of that bed, talking to my subconscious. There is a psychological
moment and you can feel it when the power of faith takes over
whatever you're trying to do, and says, all right now you can relax. This is it. I went to bed and about
two o'clock in the morning, I woke up as if somebody had
been shaking me real hard, and as I came out of my sleep, think and grow rich was in my mind. Oh boy, I let out an (indistinct) I jumped in my typewriter
and wrote it down, and I grabbed the telephone
and I called the publisher. He said, what's the matter, we've talked on the phone all night, about 2:30 a.m. in the
morning by this time, I said, yes, you bet it is
with a million-dollar title. He said, let's (indistinct) I said, think and grow rich, he said, boy, you've got it. (students laughing) Yeah, I said we've got it. That book has gross outside
of the United States, over $23 million already
and probably will roast over $100 million before I pass on. And there's no end to it. A million dollar, a
multimillion dollar title. Well, after this thrashing
that I gave my subconscious, I'm not surprised that it really came over and did a good job. Now, why didn't I use that
method in the first place? Isn't that a funny thing
where I know the law, why did I fool around
about it and temporize? Why didn't I go to the source
and get my subconscious mind all heated up, instead of
sitting down at my typewriter writing out five or 600 times. Why didn't I? Well, I'll tell you why, for the same reason
that you will oftentimes know what to do, but won't do it. There's no explaining the
indifference of mankind toward himself. Even after you know what the law is. You know what the score is. And you fool around until the last limit before you do anything about it, just like in prayer,
fool around about prayer until this time of need comes, and then you're scared to death, and of course you don't get
any results from prayer. And if you wanna have results from prayer you condition your mind so
that your life is a prayer day in and day out every
minute of your life, a constant prayer, because it's based upon belief, belief in your dignity and your rights, that you need on infinite
intelligence to have the things that you need in this world. And so it is with this human
mind you've got the condition the mind as you go along from day to day, so that when any emergency arises, you will be right there
ready to deal with it. Also the depth, there's a
purpose induces one's budget, one's time, and to plan
day to day endeavors, which lead to the attainment
of one's major purpose. If you would sit down and
put out an hour by hour account of the actual work
that you put in each day for one week, and then an hour
by hour account of the time that you wasted, you could
devote to anything you want if you wanted to, badly enough, you're going to get one of
the shocks of your life. We're not efficient. You don't have three hour, about eight hours to sleep, about eight hours to earn a living, then have eight hours of free time, but you can do anything
that you want to do it here in this country, where we live. And then, definiteness of purpose
makes one more alert in recognizing opportunities
related to the object of one's major purpose. And it inspires the courage to embrace and act upon those opportunities. We all see opportunities
almost every day of our lives, which if we embraced
them and acted upon them could benefit us. But there's something innocent
we call procrastination. We just don't have the
will or the alertness, the determination to embrace opportunities when they come along. But if you condition your
mind with this philosophy, you will not only embrace opportunities, but you'll do something better. What could you do better
than embrace an opportunity? - [Student] Make it. - [Napoleon] Make the opportunity, that's the idea. One of the Napoleon's
generals, the other Napoleon, came to him one day and
they were fixing to attack the next morning. This general says, sir, the conditions, the circumstances are not just right for the attack tomorrow. And Napoleon says,
circumstance is not right, hell, I make circumstances, attack. And I have never seen a successful
man yet in any business, that didn't say when somebody
says it can't be done, he says, attack, attack,
start where you are. And when they get around
to that curve in the road even though you can't see
by it until you get there you'll always find that the
road goes all around, attack. Don't procrastinate,
don't stand still, attack. And definiteness of purpose
inspires competence in one's integrity and character. And it attracts the favorable
attention of other people. Did you ever thought about that? I think the whole world
loves to see a person walking with his chest sticking out, walking an atmosphere that
tells the whole doggone world that he knows what he's doing and he is right on the way doing it. Well, you know, people
will get out of the way on the sidewalk and let you go by if you are determined to get by, and you don't have to
whistle at them either, or holler at them or
anything of that kind, you just have to send your
thoughts ahead with determination as you're going through that crowd, and believe me, they stand
aside and let you go through. And the world's like that, the man who knows where he
is going and is determined to get there, will always
find willing helpers to go operate with him. Now that's another very important thing. The greatest deed of all its benefits, that is definiteness of purpose, it opens the way for the full
exercise of our state of mind known as faith, by
making the mind positive and freeing the mind from the
limitations of fear and doubt and discouragement and
indecision and procrastination. The very minute that you
decide upon something, you know that's what you want, you'll know you're going to do it, all of these negatives that
have been bothering you, they pick up their baggage and get out, they just move out. They can't live in a positive mind. Can you imagine a negative
frame of mind and a positive frame of mind occupying the
same space at the same time? Could you imagine that? No, you can't, 'cause it can't be done. And did you know that the slightest bit of a negative mental attitude
is sufficient to destroy the power of prayer. Did you know that the slightest bit of of a negative mental attitude
is sufficient to destroy your plan, whatever it is you're doing? Carrying out your definiteness of purpose? You have to move with courage, with faith, with determination, in
connection with carrying out your definiteness of purpose. And next, definiteness of purpose, makes one success conscious. You know what I mean by success conscious? If I said that it makes
one also health conscious, would you know what I meant by that? What do I mean? [Student] Thinking helps. - [Napoleon] Why your
thoughts are predominantly about health and with reference
to success consciousness, your thoughts are
predominantly about success. The can do part of life
and not the no can do. Did you know that that 98%
of the people who never get anywhere in life that we've
talked about a while ago are no can do people. Any circumstances you place before them, or that is placed before
them, or that overtakes them, immediately they fasten
their narrative upon the no can do part, the negative part. I'll never forget as long as I live, what happened to me when
Mr. Carnegie surprised me and gave me a chance to
organize this philosophy. I tried to every way in
the world to give him all the reasons I can think
of, and I had about six, about six reasons why I couldn't do it. I didn't have a sufficient education, I didn't have the money, I didn't have the influence, I didn't know what the
word philosophy meant. Well, and there was about two others that immediately popped into my mind and I was trying to get
my mouth open to tell Mr. Carnegie, that I thanked him for the compliment he paid me. But what is going on
in my mind while I was doubting that Mr. Carnegie
was such a good judge of human nature as he had been reported
to be when he was picking me to do a job like that. Now that's what went on in my mind. But there were silent
person standing looking over my shoulder and he said,
go ahead and tell him you can do it, spit it out. And I said, yes, Mr. Carnegie, I'll accept the commission and
you can depend upon it, sir, that I will complete it. He reached over and grabbed
me by the hand, he said, I not only like what you said, but I liked the way you said it. That's what I was waiting for. He saw that my mind was on
fire with a belief that I could do it, even though I
hadn't the slightest asset to give me a beginning, other than my determination
that I would get the assets necessary to create this philosophy. And if I had wavered in the slightest, if I hadn't said to Mr.
Carnegie, well, yes, Mr. Carnegie I'll do my best, I am sure, I never asked him about this, but I am sure that he would
have taken the opportunity away from me instantly, because
it would have indicated that I wasn't too determined to do it. Yes, Mr. Carnegie you can
depend upon me such to complete it, and you're living witnesses here, although Mr. Carnegie
is long since been gone, you're living witnesses that Mr. Carnegie didn't peak wrongly. (applause) He knew what he was about, he found something in the
human mind, in my mind, that he'd been searching for, for years. He found it, I didn't know
it's value but I found out the value of it later. And I want you to
recognize the value of it, because you have that
same thing in your mind, that same capacity to know what you want, and to be determined that you will get it, even though you don't know
where to make the first start, and what does make a great man. Give me a good definition, what makes a great man or a great woman? Do you have any idea of what greatness is? (muffled speech) Greatness is the ability
to recognize the power of your own mind, to
embrace it and use it. That's what makes greatness. And in my book of rules,
every man and every woman can become truly great
by the simple process of recognizing his or her own mind, embracing it and using it. Now, here are instructions
for applying the principle of definiteness of purpose, and these instructions
are to be carried out to the letter. Don't overlook any part of it. First, write out a clear
statement of your major purpose, sign it, commit it to memory
and repeat it overly at least once a day in the form of a prayer or an affirmation if you choose. You can see the advantage of
this because it places your faith in your creator
squarely back at you. Now I've found from experience,
ladies and gentlemen, here is the weakest spot
in the students activities. They read this, they say what
simple enough I understand it what use to go to the
trouble writing it out. You might just as well
not have this lesson if you're going to take
that attitude with you. You must write it out, you must go through the
physical act of translating a thought onto paper, and then you must memorize it, and then you must start talking
to your subconscious mind about it, give that subconscious
mind a pretty good idea what it is you want. And it won't hurt and if you
remember the story I told you in the first half of the lesson
tonight about what I did to get my million-dollar book title. It won't do a bit of harm if
you give your subconscious mind to understand from here on
out that you are the boss, and that you're gonna
do something about it. Would you guys expect your
subconscious mind or anything else do help you if you don't
know what it is you want. If you're not definite about it. 98 out of every 100 people
taking cross section of humanity in general, do not know
what they want in life and consequently they never get it. They take whatever life hands them. In addition to your
definite major purpose, you can have minor purposes, as many as you want provided they lead you in the direction of your major purpose. Provided they are related to or lead you in the direction of your major purpose. Your whole life should be
devoted to carrying out your major purpose in life. Find out what it is you want, and incidentally, it's all
right to be modest like I am (laughs) when you go asking for what you want, but don't be too modest. Reach out and ask for a bounty, ask for the things that you
are sure you're entitled to, but in asking be sure
that you don't overlook the subsequent instructions
I'm gonna give you about what it is you're going to give in return for what you expect. Second, write out a clear
definite outline of the plan, or plans by which you
intend to achieve the object of your purpose, and state the maximum of time within which you intend to attain it, and describe it in detail
precisely what you intend to give in return for the realization
of the object of your purpose. Make your plan flexible
enough to permit changes anytime you are inspired to do so, remembering that infinite
intelligence may present you with a better plan than
yours and oftentimes will, if you are definite about what you want. Have any of you ever had a hunch
that you couldn't describe, you couldn't explain away? You know what a hunch is? - [Students] Subconscious. - [Napoleon] It's your
subconscious mind trying to get an idea over to you and
oftentimes you are too indifferent to even let the subconscious
mind talk to you for a few moments. I've heard people say, well,
I had the darn good idea the other day, but that darn good idea, you know, it might have
been a million-dollar idea if you would have listened to it and have done something about it. I have great respect for these
hunches that come to you, because there's something
outside of yourself trying to communicate with you undoubtedly. I have a great respect for
these hunches that come to me, and they come to me constantly. And I find them always
related to something that my mind has been dwelling upon, something that I wanted to do, something that I am engaged in. Write out a clear definite
outline of the plan or plans, and state the maximum of
time within which you intend to attain it. Now that timing is important. Very important. Don't write out that you
definitely dream that I intend to become the best salesman in the world. Or that I intend to become
the best employee in my organization, or that I
intend to make a lot of money. That's not definite. Whatever it is that you consider
to be your major objective in life, write it out clearly and time it. I intend to attain within
blank number of years, so and so, and then go ahead
and describe so and so, what it is, and then in the next
paragraph, down below, I intend to give in return
for the thing that I request, so and so, and then go
ahead and describe it. Now this business of timing, you know, nature has a system of timing everything. If you go out, if you're a farmer, you wanna plant some wheat in the field, you go out and you prepare that ground, you sow the wheat at the
right season of the year, and then after you sow it
you go back the next day with a harvester and start harvesting. Very next day. Well, is anybody gonna
catch me up on that one? - [Students] You wait. - [Napoleon] What do you wait for? For nature to do her part. Infinite intelligent or
God, whatever you want, it's all a matter of what you call it, and we're talking about the same thing, but there is an intelligence
that does its part if you do your part first. Intelligence is not going to direct you to or attract to you the object
of your major purpose, unless you know it is. And unless you properly time it, it'd be quite ridiculous
if you started out with only a mediocre talent and
said that you're gonna make $1 million within the next 30 days, it'd be quite ridiculous. In other words, just
make your major purpose within reason of what you
know you're able to deserve. And then keep your major
purpose strictly to yourself, except insofar as you will
receive further instructions on this subject, in the
lesson on the mastermind. Now why do I suggest that you keep your major purpose to yourself? Well, the reason of course
that you don't disclose your major purpose to other people is that there are a lot of, I know curious people in
this world who like to stand on the sidelines and stick
their toes up when you go by, especially if you've got
a high head and look like you're gonna accomplish
more in life than they are. And for no good reason at all, as you go along, they stick their toes out
and just to see you fall. They'll throw a monkey
wrenches in your machinery. They don't have monkey wrenches, they put sand in your gear box. But they will slow you down. Why, because of the envy of mankind. The only way to speak about
your definite major purpose is in action after the fact
and not before the fact, after you've achieved it, let it speak for itself. Let it speak for itself. The only way anybody can
afford to boast or brag about himself is not
by words, but by deeds. And then if you do, if
the deeds are engaged, then you don't need any words. They speak for themselves. About making your plan flexible, don't become determined that
the plan you've worked out is perfect just because you worked it out, you'll make a mistake if you do that. Leave your plan flexible,
give it a good trial, and if it's not working
properly, change it. Next call your major purpose
into your consciousness as often as may be practical. Eat with it, sleep with it, and take it with you wherever you go, keeping in mind the fact
that your subconscious mind can thus be influenced
to work for entertainment while you sleep. Your conscious mind is
a very jealous mind. It stands guard and doesn't
want anything to get by, except the things that you are afraid of, and the things that you're
very enthusiastic about. And especially the things
that you are afraid of, it does let those get by sometimes too. But generally speaking, if you want to plant an idea
in your subconscious mind, you have to do it with a
tremendous amount of faith, tremendous amount of enthusiasm, you've got to arrest the
conscious mind so that it steps aside and let you go
through to the subconscious, because of your enthusiasm and your faith. And then repetition is
a marvelous thing too. The conscious mind finally
gets tired of hearing you say a thing over and over and over, it says, all right, if
you bound to repeat that, I can stand here and watch
you forever go on in there and take it into sub and
see what you do with it. That's the way it works. This conscious mind is
a very contrary thing. And you know, it learns all
of the things that won't work. Did you know that it has a
tremendous stock of things that won't work and
things that are not right. And it has a tremendous stock
of old pieces of string, horseshoes, nails, like
some misers gather up a whole stock of those
things lying around, useless trash that it's gathered, impedimenta that you don't need. And that's the kind of stuff it's feeding to your subconscious mind. Every night just before you go to bed, you should give your subconscious
mind some sort of an order for the night, what it is you want done. I should say the healing of
your body certainly the body needs repairing everyday. When you lay the carcass down for sleep, by turning it over to the
infinite intelligence and request your subconscious mind
to go to work and heal every cell in your body, every organ, and to give you tomorrow morning, a perfectly conditioned body
in which the mind may function. Don't go to bed without giving
orders to your subconscious mind, tell it what you want. Get in the habit of
telling it what you want. If you keep on long
enough it'll believe you and deliver what you ask for. And therefore you better be
careful about what you ask for, because we keep on asking for it, you're gonna get it. I wonder if you wouldn't
be surprised if you knew right now what you've been asking for back down through the years. You ever thought of that? You've been asking for it, sure you have. Everything that you
have that you don't want you've been asking for it. Maybe by neglect, maybe by neglect, maybe you didn't tell
the subconscious mind what you really wanted and
that stocked up on a lot of stuff you didn't want. It works that way. Now, here are some important factors in connection with your
definite major purpose. First of all, it should represent your
greatest purpose in life. The one single purpose,
which above all others, that you desire to achieve
and the fruits of which you are willing to leave behind
as a monument to yourself. Now, that's what your definite
major purpose should be. I'm not talking about your minor purposes, I'm talking about your
major, overall purpose, your lifelong purpose. And believe me, friends, if
you don't have an overall lifelong purpose, you're
definitely wasting the better part of your life. The way our entire living is
not worth the price you pay for it, unless you really
are aiming for something, unless you're going somewhere in life, unless you're doing something
with this opportunity here on this planet. I imagine you were sent
over here to do something. I imagine you were sent over
here with a mind capable of hewing out, attaining your own destiny. And if you don't attain that,
if you don't use that mind, I imagine that your life to
a large extent will have been wasted, from the viewpoint
of the one who sent you over. Take possession of your mind, aim high, don't leave because in the
past you may not have achieved much you can't achieve in the future. Don't measure your future by your past. If you do you're suck. A new day is coming, they're gonna be born again. You're setting up a new pattern. You're in a new world. You're a new person. Or if not, why not? At the end every one of
you shall be born again, mentally, physically
and maybe spiritually. A new aim, a new purpose, a new realization of your
own individual power, and a new realization of your own dignity as a unit of mankind. If you asked me what I believe
to be the greatest sin of mankind, I bet you'd be surprised at what my answer would be. What would yours be? What do you think the
greatest sin of mankind is? (muffled speech) The greatest sin of
mankind is neglect to use his greatest asset. That's the greatest sin of mankind. It's bound to be that, because
if you use that greatest asset you'll have everything you want and you will have it in abundance. You notice, I didn't say
you'll have everything within reason, I said, you'd
have everything you want and have it in abundance. I didn't find any
qualifying words in there. You're the only one that
can put qualifying words in there as to what you want. You're the only one that
can set up limitations for yourself, nobody
else can do it for you, unless you let them. Your major purpose or some portion of it, should remain a few jumps
ahead of you at all times as something to which you may look forward with hope and anticipation. Now, if you ever catch up
with your major purpose and attain it, then what, what
are you going to do there? - [Students] Get another one. - [Napoleon] Get another one ofcourse, and you will have learned by
having attained your first one that you can attain a major purpose, and the challenges are when
you select your next one, you will make it a bigger objective than you did your first one. If your objective is to
acquire a material riches, well, don't aim for too
high for the first year, and work out a 12 month
plan within reason, and watch how easily you can attain it, and then next year, double it. Then next year, double last. One's major purpose should
keep a few jumps ahead of him, what's the purpose of that? Why not lay out a definite
purpose that you can catch up with well just tomorrow say. Well now obviously if you do that, you're definitely made
your purpose not gonna be very extensive is it? And you're not gonna
have the fun of pursuit. You know the fun of
pursuit is a great thing. If you found success, if you found your objective,
then there's no fun in, but you have to turn around
and start into something else. Life is less interesting when
one has no definite purpose to be attained other than
that of merely living. The hope of future achievement
in connection with a major purpose, is among the
greatest of men's pleasures. Sorry is the man indeed
who's caught up with himself. No longer has anything to do. I found a lot of them. They're all miserable. No, you've got to keep active, keep doing something, keep working, have an
objective ahead of you. Once major purpose may
and it generally does consist of that which can
be attained only by a series of day to day and month to
month and year to year steps, because it is something
which should be so designed as to consume an entire
lifetime of endeavor. It should harmonize with
one's occupation, business, or profession for each
day's work should enable one to come one day near to the attainment of his major purpose in life. I feel sorry, indeed I feel
sorry for the individual who was just working day in and
day out in order to have something to eat and some clothes to wear and a place to sleep. I feel sorry for that
kind of a person who has no aim beyond just enough to exist on. I can't imagine anybody in
this class satisfying himself, sitting down with an existence. I think you wanna live. I think you want abundance. I think you want everything
that's necessary for you to do the thing you wanna do
in life, including money. One's major purpose may and
it generally does consist of that which can be attained
only by a series of day to day or month to month aims. Now remember that when you
start in pursuit of your definite major purpose. One's major purpose may
consist of many different combinations of lesser aims, such as, the nature of one's occupation, which would be something
of his own choice. When you come to write out
your definite major purpose, you write it out like the
planks in the platform. Number one, so and so, number two, so and so, and somewhere along
that right near the end, be sure that you include in
your definite major purpose, perfect harmony between
yourself and your mate. Think that's important? Do you know of anything
more important than that? Do you know of anything, any human relationship more
important than that of a man and his wife? No, of course you don't. I'll answer that one for you. Nobody does. And have you ever heard of a
relationship of man and wife where there was not harmony? Have you ever seen a thing like that? You have, huh? Yeah, I'll answer that for you too. I know you have. Not pleasant is it, not pleasant
even to be around people who are not in step with one another. Well, you can be harmonious, and there is where you
ought to start applying your mastermind relationship first. Your wife or your husband
should be your first mastermind ally, maybe you'll have to
go back and court him or her over again, but all
right, that's nice too. I don't know of anything
I ever did in my life that I enjoy as much as courting. It's a wonderful experience, go back and court the girl over again, or the man. It's a wonderful experience, or if you're not on the
right kind of terms, your business associate,
or your fellow worker, or the people you work with everyday, go back and rededicate
yourself to the business of striking out on a new bases. You'll be surprised of a little confession on your pride Alou. Wonderful thing, the confession
is really a marvelous thing. Most people claim they have too much pride to confess to their weaknesses. I'll tell you it's a good
thing to get to that out, it gets so many weaknesses out
of your system by confession. Acknowledge that maybe you're not perfect, or well I'm perfect but
not entirely perfect. Maybe the other fellows say, well, come to think about it, neither am I. And then you're off to the races. Rededicate yourself to a better
relationship with the people that you come into contact
everyday, whoever they may be. What a wonderful thing it is. You can do that. You can handle it, you can handle it, I know you can. You know most of these
inharmonies in human relations is due to the neglect of people. You just neglect to build
up your human relations. You all could do it if
you wanted to do it. And the budgeting of income and expenses, so as to provide for the
accumulation of a definite amount for old age and security, the security of loved ones and so forth, and the budgeting of time so
as to provide whatever income that is necessary to support one's plan for the attainment of a
definite major purpose. That should be a part of
your definite major purpose. Write out your platform a lot, and include that down
under these minor purposes the things that are related
to your major purpose, the things that you're
going to have to get in the step by step move it up
toward your major purpose. And a definite plan for developing harmony in all of your relations. And especially these, in
the home, where one works, where one plays or relaxes. The human relationship leg
is the most important one in connection with one's major aim
since the aim is attainable, very largely through the
cooperation of others. Have you ever thought of that, that the things that you do
in life that are worthwhile, have to be done through
harmonious cooperation with other people. And how are you going to get
that harmonious cooperation if you don't cultivate people, if you don't understand them, if you don't make allowances
for their weaknesses. Did you ever have a friend
that appreciated that you're trying to reform him or change
his mind about something? Do you like to have a friend come around and try to reform you? No, you don't, nobody does. But there are certain things
you can do for a friend by example that might be the
effective way of doing it, but start in to tell the
man where he is wrong, and chances are that you have
business around the corner. The next time he sees you coming, he'll get on the other side of the street. In your human relations, you can develop a marvelous relationship, but you can't do it by criticizing people, harping upon their faults,
because we all have faults. A better thing to do is to
talk about a person's virtues, and his good qualities, I
have never seen a person yet, so lowly that he didn't
have some good qualities. And if you concentrate
upon those good qualities, that person on whom you are
concentrating will go out of his way and lean over backwards
to make sure that you're not disappointed, one that should
not hesitate to choose a major aim, which may be for the
time being out of his reach, for one may always prepare
himself to obtain pretty much any desired purpose in life. Certainly when I chose is
my definite major purpose, the organizing and taking
to the world of the first practical philosophy of
the individual achievement was a way beyond my reach. And what do you think it was
that kept me down through 20 years of unproductive
effort of research. What do you think it was
that kept me striving and struggling in the face
of the fact that the majority of people I knew were criticizing me. Why do you think it was? I had to have an abundance of
faith and I had to keep that faith alive by moving, moving
always as if I knew in advance that I was going to complete the task that Mr. Carnegie assigned to me. There were times when the, it looked as if what my
friends and relatives were saying about me was absolutely true. And in a sense it was,
that I was wasting my time, from their viewpoint and
their measuring stick and their standards, I was wasting 20 years of my time. But from the viewpoint of the
millions of people who have benefited and will benefit by
my work during those 20 years, I was not wasting my time. You can't fail unless you think you can, if you'd like you can fail and you can. If you stay around me long enough, I'll get to you so you're
not gonna think you can fail, you'll know you're not going to fail. Our greatest demonstration of
the universal application of the principle definiteness
of purpose may be seen by observing how nature
applies it as follows. And there is a great
string of applications. The way nature moves was
definiteness of purpose. And ladies and gentlemen, if there is anything in this
universe that's definite, it's the laws of nature. They don't deviate. They don't temporize. They don't subside. You can't go around them, you can't avoid them. And however you can learn their
nature and adjust yourself to them and benefit by them. Nobody ever heard of the law
of gravitation being suspended, not even for fraction of a second, it never has been done and never will be, 'cause nature's whole set up
throughout the whole universe, system of universes perhaps, is so definite that everything
moves with precision like clockwork, if you want an
example of the necessity of an individual moving with
definiteness you only have to have a smattering of
understanding of the sciences, to see the way that nature does things, and then you'll have that example. The orderliness of the
universe and the interrelation of all of the natural laws, the fixation of all of
the stars and planets, in the immovable relationship to one. But yet this is a marvelous
thing to know that the astronomers can sit down and
with a pencil and a few pieces of paper, predetermine
hundreds of years in advance the exact relationship of
given planets and stars, right where they will be with
relationship to one another, in advance. And you know, they couldn't do that if there was not a purpose, a plan under which we're working, we want to find out what that purpose is as it relates to us as individuals. That's why you're in this course. That's why I'm teaching you. I'm giving you that little
bit that I have picked up from life and from the experiences of men, and from my own experience, so that you will learn
how to adjust yourself to the laws of nature in order
that you may use those laws instead of allowing yourself to be abused by your neglect in using them. To me, one of the most horrible
things to contemplate is, the possible cessation of natural laws. Imagine all of the chaos, all of the stars and
planets running together, while they make the H bomb
look like a firecracker, if nature allowed her
laws to be suspended, but she doesn't do that. She has very definite laws to go by, and you'll find that if you
check these 17 principles, they check perfectly with
all of the laws of nature. We get over to that to principle
of going the extra mile, you will find that nature is
profound in their application of the principle of going the extra mile. When she produces blooms on the trees, she doesn't produce just
enough to fill a tree, she produces enough to take
care of all of the damages the winds and the storms. When she produces fish in the sea, she doesn't just produce
enough to perpetuate the fish, she produces enough to feed
the frogs and the snakes, and the alligators and all the
other things that still have left to carry out her purpose. She has an abundance of
things, over abundance, and also she forces man
to go the extra mile or else she'll perish, she
would perish in one season if you didn't go the extra mile, if nature didn't compensate
a man when he goes out and puts a grain of wheat in the ground, by giving him back 500 grains, to compensate him for his intelligence, we would starve to death in one season. If you do your part, nature does her part. And she does it in
abundance, in abundance, in super abundance. And one of the strange
things about nature is that if you keep your mind focused
on the positive side of life, it becomes greater than the negative side. Always does that. If you keep your mind
on the positive side, it becomes greater than all
of the negatives that may try to penetrate your mind
and influence your life. Look around and you'll find
examples, living examples, all around you, of people
that you wanna emulate and people you do not wanna emulate, people that are failing,
and you'll be able to tell why they're failing. I dare say that from this time on, you will be able to use this
philosophy as a measuring stick and wherever you find
a success or a failure, you'll be able to lay your
finger right on the cause of it, right on it, and
that includes you too. First of all, the first premise is that the
mastermind principle is the medium through which one may
procure the full benefits of the experience, the
training, the education, and the specialized knowledge
and influence of others as completely as if their
minds were in reality one zone. Isn't that a marvelous
thing to contemplate, that whatever it is that
you lack in education, or in knowledge or influence, you can always obtain it
through somebody who has it. The exchange of favors,
the exchange of knowledge is one of the greatest
exchanges in the world. It's a very nice thing to
engage in business where the exchange of money makes you a profit, but I would a whole lot rather
exchange ideas with somebody, give a man an idea that
he didn't have before, and receive in return
one that I didn't have, and I would do it make
an exchange of money. You of course know that Thomas
A. Edison was perhaps the greatest investor the
world has ever known. He was dealing all the time
with many of the sciences, and yet he knew nothing at
all about any of the sciences. You would say it would be
impossible for a man to succeed in any undertaking unless he
were educated in that field. I was astounded when I first
talked to Andrew Carnegie to get to hear him say that
he personally didn't know anything about the making
or the marketing of steel. And I was so astounded
of that secret, I said, well, Mr. Carnegie just what
is your part in this job here. What part do you play? Well, he said, I'll tell
you the part that I play, my job is to keep the members
of my mastermind alliance working in a state of perfect harmony. And I said, is that all you have to do? He said, well, have you ever
tried to get any two people to agree on anything for three minutes in succession in your life? I said, well, I don't know that I have, well, you try it someday and
see what kind of a job it is to get people to work together
in the spirit of harmony, is one of the greatest
of human achievements. And then Mr. Carnegie went on
to break down his mastermind group to describe each one individually, to tell what part he played. One was his metallurgist, one was his chief chemist. One was his plant works manager. And one was his legal advisor. One was the chief of his financial staff. And so on down the line there
were over 20 of those men working together whose
combined education, experience, and knowledge constituted
all that was known about the making and the marketing
of steel at that time. And Mr. Carnegie said well,
it wasn't necessary for him to know about it, he had
men all around him who did understand the making and
the marketing of steel. And that was his job to keep them working in perfect harmony. And the second premise, an active alliance of two
or more minds in a spirit of perfect harmony for the
attainment of a common objective, stimulate each individual mind to a higher degree of courage, and that which is ordinarily experience, and prepares the away for that
state of mind known as faith. When driving an automobile
every so often the battery runs down, and you have to
do something about it, you come out somewhere and
you step on the starter, nothing happens. I know people who get out
of bed in the morning, do the same thing. Nothing happens except they feel badly, and they don't wanna put on their shoes. They don't wanna get dressed, they don't wanna even eat breakfast. Now they need a, what do they need? - [Student] Battery. - [Napoleon] Need their
batteries charged of course, and they have to have
a storage for doing it. So my defining thing of a
man gets up in the morning feeling like that, unless he
can have a little talk with his wife for instance, and
she's a good coordinator, and she helps to charge his batteries. The chances are when he
comes home that night, he will come home with
all these rabbit skins that he went out to get. The third premise, a
mastermind alliance properly conducted stimulates
each mind in the alliance to move with enthusiasm,
personal initiative, imagination, and the courage to a degree far above that which the individual
experiences when moving without certain alliance. In my own early beginning I
had them mastermind alliance of three people. I had an alliance with Mr. Carnegie, and with my stepmother, and we threw three people
nurse this philosophy through the stages when everybody
else was laughing at me, and making fun of me for
undertaking to serve the richest man in the world for 20 years
without any compensation. And there was a whole lot of
logic to what they were saying, because at that time I wasn't
getting very much compensation out of it in the way money at least. There came a time however, when the last thing was on
the other side of the face, but that took a long time, and there was plenty of blood
and tears shed I'll assure you before I got to the point
at which I could laugh back when the people laughed at me, but the relationship
between we three people, my stepmother and Mr. Carnegie and myself, enabled me to offset all of
this fun making that was thrown at me by my relatives, my friends, and everybody who knew
who I was engaged in. Now, there are times when if
you undertake anything above mediocrity, you're going
to meet with opposition, you're going to meet with
the people who are chimed in to poke fun at you, and most of them will be
right close to yourself, some of them perhaps your own relatives. You need some source to which
you can turn when you're going to aim above mediocrity to
get your batteries charged and to keep them charged
so that you won't quit when the going is hard and so
you won't pay any attention when somebody criticize you. Criticism falls off my back
just like a water off a duck's back, or more than that, like a bullet off the rhinoceros's hide. Absolutely immune, absolutely immune to
all forms of criticism, whether it's friendly or unfriendly, it makes no difference to me whatsoever. I'm just immune to it that's all. And I became immune because
of by relationship with certain people through whom
I built up an immunity, under my mastermind alliance. If it had not been for the
relationship with my stepmother and Mr. Carnegie, I wouldn't
be standing here talking to you folks tonight, you wouldn't
be here as students of this philosophy and this philosophy
would that be spread all over the world helping millions of people. 'Cause I had a million
opportunities to quit, at least a million opportunities. And every one of them
looked very alluring, and almost sometimes it
seems as if I were stupid if I didn't quit. But this marvelous relationship, I could always go back to Mr. Carnegie, I could always go running
into my stepmother and we'd sit down and have a little chat, and she'd say, stand by your guns. You'll come out on top. I know you will. She once said at a time when
I didn't have two nickels to rub together, as my
enemies were saying, she once said that you are
going to be the richest member of your family far and away, I know it, I can see it in the future. Well, if you were to take all of my riches and put them together, I suspect that I have more
riches than all of my relatives put together for three generations back, on both sides of the house, that's true. And my stepmother could see that, she could see what I was doing
was bound to make me rich. And my heart don't have reference
alone to monetary riches I have, reference to those
higher and broader riches that you find when you get to
where you can render services to so many people. And the fourth premise to be effective the mastermind alliance must be active. It must be active. You can't just form an
alliance with somebody to say, that's it, we've got it. I'm lined up with this
person, that person, the other person, we've
got a mastermind alliance, it amounts to absolutely
nothing until you become active. Every member of the alliance
has got to step right in there and start pitching, mentally,
spiritually, physically, financially, every way that is necessary, they must engage in the
pursuit of a definite purpose and they must move with perfect harmony. Do you know the difference
between perfect harmony and ordinary harmony? Do you know what it is? How many of you know
the difference between perfect harmony and ordinary harmony? How many of you have ever had
a relationship with perfect harmony with anybody? I'll tell you the truth. I suspect that I have had
the harmonious relationships with about as many people, maybe more people than
any person living today, beyond any question for now, but I want to tell you
that perfect harmony in a relationship is about the
rarest thing in the world. And I think I could count
on the fingers of my hands all of the people that I
now know with whom I have a relationship of perfect harmony. I have a speaking acquaintance
very nice polite speaking acquaintance with a lot of people, but that's not perfect harmony. I have a working alliance
with a lot of people. That's not harmony, perfect harmony. Perfect harmony consists
only when your relationship to the other fellow is such that if he wants everything you have, you willingly turn it over to him. Now, it takes a lot of
unselfishness to put yourself in that frame of mind. Mr. Carnegie stressed time and time again, the importance of this
relationship of perfect harmony, because he said, if you
don't have perfect harmony in your mastermind alliance, it's not a mastermind
alliance after all it's just cooperation or coordination of effort. Without this factor of harmony, the alliance may be nothing
more than ordinary cooperation or friendly coordination of effort. The mastermind give one full
access to the spiritual powers of the other members of the alliance. I want you to underscore
that part in your notes. The mastermind gives one
full access to the spiritual powers of the other
members of his alliance. I'm not talking now about
just the mental powers, or the financial powers,
but the spiritual power. The feeling you have when
you begin to establish the permanency in your
mastermind relationship is gonna be one of the most
outstanding and pleasant experiences of your entire life. When you're engaged in
the mastermind activity, I wanna tell you that
you have so much faith, you will know that you can do
anything that you start out to do, you have no doubts, you have no fears, you have no limitations, and that's a marvelous
frame of mind to be in. And the sixth premise. - [Students] Fifth. - [Napoleon] Yes, I just wanna
know if you're following, it is the fifth. Is the matter of established
record that all individual successes based upon
any kind of achievement above mediocrity are attained
through the mastermind principle and not by
individual effort alone. Just imagine how little you
can accomplish if you didn't have the cooperation of other people. Suppose that you're in a profession, suppose you're a dentist,
or a lawyer, or a doctor, or a boss in your path or
anybody in the profession. And suppose that you didn't
understand how to convert each one of your clients or patients into a salesman for yourself. Imagine how long would it
take to build up a client deal or a following. The outstanding professional
man understand how to make a salesman out of person that they serve, and they do it all by indirection. They don't go about it directly. They do it by going the extra mile, by going out of their way
to be of unusual service. But they do make salesman
out of all of their clients. Emotional accesses are the
result of personal power, and personal power of
sufficient proportions to enable one to rise above
mediocrity is not possible without the application of
the mastermind principle. During the first term
of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House, I had the privilege of working with him as a confidential advisor, and precisely laid out the
skeleton of the propaganda plan that took the words, business
depression off of the, out of the headlines of
the papers and substituted in their stead business recovery. Those of you who remember
what happened on that black Sunday, when we had a meeting
down at the White House, when the banks were closed
the following Monday morning, remember what a stampede
there was in this country. People were lined up
in front of the banks, all over the country to
draw out their deposits. They were scared to death. They had lost confidence in
their country, in their banks, in themselves and in everybody else. Supposed we still had
some confidence in God, but didn't show much signs of it. It was a scary time I'll tell you. And we sat down there and worked out a skeleton of a plan and procedure that created one of the most outstanding applications of a mastermind
that this nation has ever seen, and I doubt that any nation on
earth has ever had the equal of because it was only a matter
of weeks until we had taken all that fear out of people. It was only a matter of days
until salesman on the road who had to run out of funds,
who couldn't get money, were laughing about it, not in any way scared about it. My own funds were closed, I had no money, none at all. I had, yes, I did, (laughs) Let me tell you, this is funny. I got very smart when I
found out what was coming and I ran down to the
bank got $1,000 bill. Well, I might just as
well had only 10 cents, nobody could change it. It was not a nickle, not a nickel. But I wasn't scared
because everybody else was in the same boat as I was in, but something has to be done about it. And Franklin D, Roosevelt
was a great leader. He had great imagination,
he had great courage. And here's what we did. First of all, we got
both houses of Congress working in harmony with the president. The first time in the
history of this nation that both houses of Congress, Democrats and Republicans
alike got behind the president and forgot about their
political fates happened to be. In other words, there were no Democrats, there were no Republicans, they were just Americans down
there backing the president, everything he needed in order
to stop that stampede of here. I have never seen anything
as equal in my life. I'll never hope to see it again. I wish I could, but I don't hope to, because there was a great
emergency on them and something had to be done about in
seconds the majority of the newspaper publishers of America, everything that we set up,
the newspapers published it, they gave it marvelous space, and then the radio station operators, they gave us marvelous
despite their political beliefs, and the churches, all that was one of the most
beautiful things I've ever seen in this country, Catholics
and Protestants, Jews, and Gentiles and all of the rest, pulling together as Americans. I want to tell you it
was a wonderful sight. A wonderful sight. What a wonderful thing it was. They all got behind the president. Everyone must have made
some sort of a contribution toward re-establishing faith
in the people of this country. But during these hectic
days I wanna tell you that there wasn't any doubt in
the minds of the majority of the people, I don't know, I didn't come in contact with
anybody who didn't think that Mr. Roosevelt was the only
man, the finest man that could possibly have handled
that chaotic condition. Don't get me wrong politically
I'm just talking about a great man who did a great job at a time when it needed to be done. And he did it because he had a
mastermind alliance right out there that was unbeatable. Now let's pick up the different kinds of mastermind alliances that you may have. First of all, there were
alliances for purely social or personal reasons. Consisting of one's relatives, friends and religious advisors where
no material gain is sort. The most important of this type
is the mastermind alliance, which may exist between
the man and his wife. I couldn't emphasize if I were brilliant, and if I had the great magnetic powers, I couldn't overemphasize
the importance to you who are married, of going
into work immediately and rededicating that marriage
to a mastermind alliance based upon this lesson tonight. It'll bring joys into your life
that you've never dreamed of it'll bring success into your life, that you never dreamed of. It'll bring health into your
life that you never dreamed of. It's a perfectly marvelous thing, when the real mastermind alliance exists between a man and his wife. I don't know of anything that equals it. Then there're alliances for
business or professional advancement consisting of
individuals who have a personal motive of a material
or a financial nature, connected with the object
of their alliances. Now, I imagine that the
majority of you who are in this class now will be forming your
first mastermind alliances for purely economic or
financial advancement purposes. And that's perfectly legitimate. That's one of the reasons why
you're taking this course. You want to improve your
economic and financial condition, and you should start in
immediately now to form a mastermind alliance for that purpose. And if you can find to
begin with one person, that's all right, start off with one, and then look around until
the two of you select another. Now you can select these other one, but the two of you, when you
go to select the third party, be sure that the second one
that you've already selected is in the card. You understand that, that's important. And then when you go to select the forth, the three of you then
will place on the fourth. Then you'll go over the
matter very carefully before you make him a
member of the alliance. And then when you go to select the fifth, the four of you will select the fifth. You see the mastermind alliance, there's no such thing as
one person dominating, except in this respect
that generally speaking one person is the leader. He's the coordinator and the leader, but he at no way undertakes
to dominate his associates. Because the very moment you
start to dominate anybody, you find resistance and rebellion, even though it's not open rebellion, it's rebellion nevertheless. And in the mastermind alliance, it must be one continuous
spirit of perfect harmony where you move and act as if
you were only one man. The American system of free
enterprise is another example of efficiencies through the
mastermind principle. This system is the envy of the
world because it has raised the standard of living
of the American people, to an all-time high level. And that's despite the fact that there's not perfect harmony, but there is motive. There is motive that the American
system of free enterprise to inspire every
individual to do his best. There is a motive there, and incidentally more and
more industry and business is coming to understand that
they can go a step further, and instead of just having
cooperation or coordination of effort between
management and the workers, that they can have the
mastermind principle by sharing the management problems,
by sharing profits, by sharing everything, and wherever I have been
successful in influencing any business to adopt that policy, the business has made more money
than it's ever made before, and the employees have received more wages and everybody's happy. General instructions for the
forming and the maintenance of the mastermind alliance. First, adopt the definite
purpose as an objective to be attained by the alliance,
choosing individual members whose education experience
and influence are such as to make them have the greatest value in achieving the purpose. A lot of times my mastermind students, what is the most favorable
number for a mastermind alliance? And how do you go about selecting the right sort of people for
your mastermind alliance, and your answers if I can give you that, is that the procedure is
exactly the same as if you were starting into a business and
you are choosing employees, what kind of an employee would you choose? (muffled speech) Marvelous, I see the sparks flying. Wonderful, wonderful. - [Student] Integrity. - [Napoleon] Dependability
at the top of the list. If a person is not dependable, I don't want any part of him
in a business transaction. No part of him no matter
how brilliant they may be, no matter how well educated he may be, the more educated he is, the
more dangerous he may be, if he's not dependable. And if he's not loyal, I
would say the same thing. If an individual is not loyalty
to those to whom he owes loyalty, then to me, he has
no character whatsoever, and I want no part of him. Dependability and loyalty. And then after that comes what? Ability to do the job. Ability. Notice where I placed ability, down at third place. I'm not interested in the
man's ability until I find out whether he's dependable
and whether he is loyal. And then what would you say
came after that in my category, in my book rules. (muffled speech) Number four, positive
mental attitude of course. What good is a negative,
wet blanket around you? Why, you could pay him to stay away and then be ahead of the game. And number five, what would that be? (muffled speech) Going the extra mile, that is right. And number six? (muffled speech) Why would you say that is? (laughs) Applied faith. (laughs) Now let me tell you, when you find people that
come up to all of those six traits, I wanna tell you,
you've really found somebody, you're in the presence of royalty. Some businesses, if you
were running a peanut stand, to you maybe need only one person, but if you're running a
chain of peanut stands, you might need 100 persons. And then as to the
qualifications of a mastermind, I like to first of all, take those six points that
I gave you they are the qualifications for your mastermind. Now there must be dependability, there must be a- - [Students] Loyalty. - [Napoleon] Loyalty. (muffled speech) Must be ability. (muffled speech) Must be positive mental attitude. - [Students] Going the extra mile. - [Napoleon] Must be willing
to go the extra mile. - [Students] Applied faith. - [Napoleon] Applied faith. Now there you are. If you want to know what
the qualifications of your mastermind alliance, there it is. And don't settle for anything less. If you find a man that has
five of those qualities, and doesn't have all six of them, you better be aware of
him before you start, because they're all central in
the mastermind relationship, you can check very carefully
and see that that's true. You couldn't have perfect
harmony unless you were working with somebody who's checked 100% on all of those six qualities. You just couldn't have
a mastermind alliance. You might have a working
arrangement like so many people do, but it wouldn't embrace
all of the potential values of the mastermind. Next determine what appropriate
benefit each member may receive in return for his
cooperation in this alliance. And remember ladies and gentlemen, nobody ever does anything for nothing. No, they never do. You see when you give love to
somebody you don't want to get anything out of that, you
don't do that for nothing. Well, let me tell you something, you get plenty out of that, because you've had the
privilege of loving, is a great privilege. And even though the love is not returned, you still have had the
benefits of that state of mind, of knowing this love
and you've enjoyed the development and growth as a result of it. No, there's no such thing
as something for nothing. Nobody works without some
sort of a compensation. There are very many different
forms of compensation. So don't expect that your
mastermind allies are going to jump in and help you make a fortune, or help you do anything
unless they are equally participating in the benefits
that come out of that mastermind alliance. Now, there is a criteria by which you go, they must approximately, each individual must
approximately benefit equally with yourself, whether
it's a monetary benefit, or a happiness or peace of mind benefit, social benefit or
whatever it happens to be. Never ask anybody to do anything, if you wanna be sure if he's doing it, unless you're giving him an
adequate motive for doing it. If I went down to the bank
and wanted to borrow $10,000, what would be an adequate
motive for the bank lending me that money? (muffled speech) Two motives. Or I'm under the heading of
a desire for financial gain. (muffled speech) Now they'd want to, bank would
be delighted to allow me as much money as I can
take away if I give them three for one security- - [Student] Collateral. - [Napoleon] Collateral, they
want collateral and they want the profit on that loan. That's what they're in business for. Now there are other
transactions not based upon the monetary motive. For instance, when the man
asks the girl of his choice to marry him, what's the motive there? - [Students] Love. - [Napoleon] Sometimes (laughs) Theoretically love, yes. - [Student] Money. (laughs) - [Napoleon] This is interesting. I bet out of all the people sitting here, everyone would have a
different idea, or definition as to what the motive is
when a man asks a girl if she wants to marry him and she accepts. Why does she accept him? (muffled speech) (laughs) I wanna tell you that when my
father brought my stepmother home, he was just a farmer,
he never had had on a white shirt or a tie, he was afraid of white shirts and ties, he wore a blue cotton shirt. And my stepmother was a college woman, she was well educated and
they were as different as the North pole and the South pole. And I wondered all of
my life until one day, just how he happened to be
able to sell himself to her. Of course, she cleaned him up
and put a white shirt on him, made him look like somebody. But nevertheless, it took her
quite a little while to do it. And she finally got him into the money, and he became an outstanding man. And I, at that point, I said to her, how in the world is my father, I remember what he looked like
and what he would talk like, he used the Queen's English, 'cause I've seen him
becoming I've done my duty, and all that sort of thing, I said, how in the world did
he ever sell himself to you? What was the motive? She said, well, I'll tell you. First of all, I recognize
that he had good blood in his veins as he had
possibilities and I believe that I could bring them out. And she did bring them out. Mrs. Henry Ford and Mrs. Thomas Edison, are two of the outstanding
examples that I use time and time again, to show what the woman can do to make her husband successful. Had it not been for Mrs.
Ford's understanding of the mastermind principle, although
she didn't call it by that name, Mr. Ford would
never have been known, they all have a Ford automobile,
never would have been here. And I doubt if the automobile industry would have been ushered in as it has been. It was Mrs. Ford, more
than it was Mr. Ford, that kept him going, kept him alert, kept him filled with
confidence in himself, when the going was hard, and when other people were
criticizing him in connection with these contraption as they call it, that was only designed to scare horses. Just as I was criticized
for pulling away my time with the richest man in the
world, working for nothing. Mrs. Ford, sustained him
through those trying hours, when the going was hard, as
all of you will experience that period in your life. The going is hard at some
place with everybody. A lot of times a woman will
marry a man because she sees there's possibilities, you
can do something with him, make something out of him. Sometimes it's monetary consideration. Sometimes it's love. Sometimes it's one thing
and sometimes another, but every time anybody
engages in any transaction, there is a motive back up
you may be sure of that, as whatever it is that
you want anybody to do, pick out the right kind of a
motive and find it in the mind under the proper circumstances and you'll become a master salesman. Next. Establish a definite plan
in which each member of the alliance will make his
contribution in working toward the achievement of the object of
the alliance as a range of definite time and place for the mutual discussion of the plan. In definite this year will bring defeat keep a regular means of
contact between all members of your alliance. Did you ever hear of a
great friendship existing? Let me rephrase that. Have you ever had a great
friendship with somebody and then suddenly saw it grow cold
and then finally die? How many have had that experience? Of course, most of us have, to be sure. And what do you think
was the reason for it? (muffled speech) Neglect. That's all neglect. If you have very close
and very dear friends, the only way you can keep
them is to keep in contact, counsel, it's nothing but
an occasional postal card. I have one student who was a member of my class
in 1928 in New York city. And she never has missed a
single one of my birthdays to send me a card. One time she was off on her vacation and she forgot it until mid
afternoon of my birthday, and she sent me a telegram
congratulating me on my birthday. In other words, she has been
the most constant student that I've ever had out
of the many thousands all over the country. Well, as a result of that close
attention that she's given me, there've been times when
I've been able to help her in a business way too. Lifetime I got her a promotion it was amount to about $4,000 a year, which is quite a little bit of pay off for the business of keeping in contact. Quite a nice bit of pay off. But you have to keep in contact
with your mastermind allies, you have to have regular meeting places. You have to keep them active. If you don't they grow
cold or grow in different, and finally they're of no value for you. If you had a definite major purpose, knew exactly what you wanted to do, had a mastermind alliance of
people that could help you do it, and then have the sufficient place to keep you going while you did it. Don't you see that would be
about all you would need. Why then do we need the
14 additional principles do you suppose. Well, I'll tell you why. We need 14 additional
principles to induce you, to make use of these three. You need personal initiative. You need the imagination. You need enthusiasm. In other words, this
philosophy is something like baking a cake. When you go to bake a cake, you don't have put in just one ingredient. You put in a pinch of this, a pinch of that, a dash
of the other thing. Then you put it in the stove and bake it. If you took out any one
of those ingredients, you wouldn't have the same kind of a cake. And it's the same way
with this philosophy. You can't leave out any
one of these 17 principles. It'd be just like taking
a link out of a chain. You wouldn't have a chain anymore, you'd have two parts of a
chain but not a whole chain. And these are the 14 principles, supporting principles of the three. Faith is a state of mind that
has been called the mainspring of the soul through which
one's aims, desires, plans and purposes may be translated into their physical or
financial equipment. And here are the fundamentals of faith. Now, when you speak of applied
faith ladies and gentlemen, we're talking about
something vastly different from just mere belief. Applied, the word applied means what? - [Students] Action. - [Napoleon] Action. That's the action part of faith. And without action faith is
nothing but just daydreaming. And there are a lot of people, who believe in things, but they don't do anything about them. They are engaging only in daydreaming. Applied faith is an act of faith. Now the fundamentals of
faith are first of all, definitely it's a purpose
supported by a personal initiative and action, action, action. The more action, the better. That means continuous action. Not only on your part, but on the part of those that
may be cooperating with you, or may be masterminds allies of yours. And next, a positive mind, free from all negatives,
such as fear and the hatred, jealousy and greed, is essential. Mental attitude determines
the effectiveness of faith. Mental attitude. Did you know that is a fact, the frame of mind that you're in, when you go to pray, determines what happens as a result of that prayer, there's no two ways about that. You can test it for your
own selves and find out, I have no doubt you have. I have no doubt that you've
had the experiences I've had of sending out prayers that
didn't produce anything but a negative result. You've had that experience haven't you? How many of you have had that experience? Oh come on now, be modest. Do you suppose there ever was
anybody that didn't have that experience at one time or another? I want to tell you that
when you go to prayer, unless you have such absolute
faith that whatever you are going after that, you're going to acquire, that you can see it in
advance in your possession before you start asking for it, the chances are that the
effect of your prayer is going to be negative. And next, a mastermind
alliance with one or more people who radiate courage based on faith and are suited mentally and spiritually, the ones needs in carrying
out a given purpose. I'm talking to you now about the elements or the constituent parts or the premises that go into the business
of applied faith. And next, recognition of the
fact that every adversity carries with it the seed
of an equivalent benefit and temporary defeat is not
failure until it has been accepted as such. Do you know where the majority
of people fall down in connection with their
application of their faith? It's when they're defeated, then they accept that
defeat as being something they can't do anything about. Instead of beginning immediately
to search for that seed of an equivalent benefits
that's in every defeat, they begin become moody and broody, they become discouraged, they build up inferiority
complexes instead of a reversing that order and using that to
defeat as nothing more than temporary and making another effort. And next, the habit of
affirming one's definite major purpose in the form of a
prayer at least once daily. The subconscious mind only
knows what you tell it, or what you allow other people to tell it, or what you allow the
circumstances of life to tell it. And it doesn't know the
difference between a lie and the truth, it doesn't know
the difference between a penny and a million dollars. It accepts the things that you send over. And if you send over a
predominating thoughts on poverty and ill health on failure,
that's exactly what you'll get. No matter how much faith
that you may have later on, you find out that the subconscious
response to the mental attitude that you're
maintaining during the day, and it's necessary for you to
affirm over and over again, this object that you are
going to attain in life, until you educate your subconscious mind to attract automatically to you, the things that are related
to what you're aiming to attain in life, you'll find that your mind
is like an electromagnet. And once you charge it
with a clear picture of what you want, it will attract to you from
the highways in the byways, the things that you need
to carry out that purpose. And next, recognition of
the existence of infinite intelligence that gives order and a list of the entire universe. That's the individual you, that is, is a minute expression
of this intelligence, and as such, you're the individual, your mind has no limitations, except those excepted are
set up in your own mind. Your mind has no limitations whatsoever, except those that you allow
it to be stabbed as the arrow that you deliberately set up
in your own mind or accept. Now, that's a pretty
broad secret, isn't it? But the achievements are men
like Mr. Edison and Mr. Ford and Mr. Carnegie and
Napoleon Hill if you please, certainly, definitely supports
the idea that there is no limitation except that what
you set up in your own mind. And if I had ever wavered for one second, from the time that I
started with Mr. Carnegie, up until the time I gave
this philosophy to the world, if I had wavered one second, in my belief that I would do it, I would never have done it. How did I happen to do it? Do you have any idea about
what played the strongest part in what I've achieved? It wasn't my brilliancy, it wasn't my outstanding intelligence, I have no more brilliancy
than the average person, no more intelligence
than the average person, but there was something in there that was responsible for it. (muffled speech) (laughs) right. In other words, I believed I could do it and I never stopped believing it. The harder the going was, the
more I believed I would do it. And I wanna tell you that if
you can take that attitude towards yourself, if you
can throw herself over on the side of yourself, so to speak, when you're overtaken by adversity, when people are guessing,
if you can do that, if can stand by, and not also
go over against yourself, then you're using applied faith, and you've got to do that. Do you know, they're
testing times for people? Had you ever thought of that? Nobody is permitted to
attain high state in life and stay there without being tested, any more than anybody is allowed
to go into a well managed business and to go up to a high position and stay there without even
tested with lower position step-by-step until he earns
the right to be up to the top. I don't know how the creator
runs his business entirely, but I can catch a pretty
good idea of how he does it from observing that part
which I can understand. Of course, there's much more
that I can't understand, but I can see definitely that
he allows nobody to attain to a highest stage in life without
giving him severe testing. And one of the most
astounding things that I found in my research was that the
men of great achievement in all walks of life, back down to the ages were
great only in proportion as they had been defeated
and as they had met with opposition. Now that's an astounding thing. It couldn't have been a
coincidence that every one of these outstanding men was great in
proportion exactly as he had been small, and that he had been opposed, and as he had had the struggle. I used to tell him my early struggles and tell him some of my defeats, my business management
asked me about and said it wasn't a good idea. I still think it's a good idea. I think it's a fine idea because
if you only do the amount of major defeats that I had met with and still get my head above water, and still we have to
deliver this philosophy, you'd say if Hill can
do it, I can do it too. And that was the only reason
of course that I ever spoke of. The habit of affirming ones
definiteness major purpose in the form of a prayer at least daily, and the recognition of
infinite intelligence. I don't mind what terms you use. You can call that God,
or you call it Jehovah, or you can call it a Buddha, or you can call it Muhammad. Anything you wanna do, no matter what you call
it we're all talking about the first cause there
isn't two first causes, there is only one. There couldn't be two, there's one first cause that's
responsible for this great universe we're living in
for you and for me and for everything that's in the universe. I call it infinite intelligence
because I have students of all faiths and all
religions all over the world as my students and the
infinite intelligence happens to be a sort of a neutral in between term that nobody can object to, nobody at all. But unless you not only believe in that, unless you can prove yourself, unless you can absolutely
put out on paper evidence that there is first
cause if you can draw on then you are no going to be able to make the fullest use of applied faith. One of my students asked me one day about my concept of God, my concept of infinite intelligence
and if I meant the same thing as God, I said yes, I do, he said, can you prove the
existence of your concept of God? I said, everything in the
universe is the finest of the evidence of the existence of it, because of the orderliness
of the universe, everything's orderly from
the electrons and protons of the smallest part of a
matter on up to the largest suns that float through the heavens. Everything's in orderliness, no chaos, no running together the planets. There's more evidence of a
first cause than there is of anything that I know of. And if you don't believe
that, if you don't accept it, if you don't see it, if you don't feel it, if you don't know that, then you won't know that
you are a minute part of that infinite intelligence
expressing through your brain. And if you want to recognize that, then you recognize the
truth of what I said, that your only limitations
are those which you set up in your own mind or permit
somebody to set up there or circumstances to establish for you. Next, careful inventory of your
past defeats and adversities from which it becomes obvious
that all such experiences do carry the seed of
an equivalent benefit. Just to hear me say that every
adversity carries with it the seed of equivalent benefit. That every defeat everything
there carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit, wouldn't mean a thing in the world to you, unless I made application of it, and gave the illustration
after illustration, unless you examine enough illustrations in your own experiences, to see if it always works out that way. That's why I want you to
examine these adversities that come to you. Do you know that oftentimes
your adversities are your greatest blessings? You have any idea? Do you have any idea the
greatest blessing that ever came into my life, those of you
who know considered about me, would you have any idea what it is? (indistinct) Of course it was the loss of my mother, and ordinarily you would
say that would be the greatest catastrophe
that can overtake a child would be to lose his mother
at the age of nine years. Why do I say that was
the greatest blessing? Because it brought me a new
mother to take her place that's been responsible for
everything that I've achieved, everything that I shall achieve, very largely responsible at least, and without her influence, I'd still be up there
fighting rattlesnakes, drinking mountain liquor
and fighting fuse, where my relatives still
are doing that same thing, no reason to expect that I wouldn't be. I've had a lot of other adversities. And I wanna tell you that
without some pretty major adversities I've gone through
I'd never been able to approve the soundness of this
philosophy and that there is the seed of an equivalent
benefits in every adversity. Can you imagine any worse
adversity coming to a man than to walk down to the
hospital and to be informed that your son was born
without any sign of ears, and that he would be a deaf
and dumb mood all of his life. Can you imagine any worse
adversity than that? I've always be thankful
that that happened because by my contact with infinite intelligence, he was improvised with a
hearing system of some sort that gave him 65% of his normal hearing. And with a hearing aid 100%, he just learned to live a normal
life and I got the greatest demonstration of my entire
experience of the power of faith, I couldn't have gotten it any other way. I couldn't have gotten it second hand. I had to get it first hand. I never accepted that
affliction of that child, not even before I saw him, not even after I saw him, I never accepted it. His relatives accepted it. They wanted to put him in this
school of underprivileged, where he learned the sign language, learned to lip reading, I didn't want him to know
there were such things. And when he got up to where
he was old enough to go to school, I had a fight with
the school authorities every year just as regular
as the time came around, they wanted to send him over
to school for underprivileged children or he'd mix
with the other children and see that there were afflictions. I didn't want him to know
there were such things. And I told him from
the very beginning that he not having any ears
was a great blessing. And he believed it and
it turned out to be, because people took compassion on him. They did things for him they
wouldn't have done otherwise. He got a job as a salesman
for the Saturday Evening Post, and he led every salesman
throughout the United States. Oftentimes he'd go out and
with $5 worth of merchandise and come back with $10 in cash. He did that many times. People would look at him
that poor little fellow and he is out selling papers, I guess his parents were poor. (laughs) Gave him a dollar bill, instead of giving him
back $0.95 they'd say, oh, it's alright just keep that. And very often he'd get
a dollar a piece for Saturday Evening folks. Not at all conscious
today of any affliction, he's living a perfectly normal
life because I taught him, that an affliction, any
kind of an affliction, can be transmuted into a benefit. That's an astounding thing isn't it, to consider that, that is true. But it is true. As I said, you're just hearing me say that won't mean the thing in the world unless you begin to look
around in your own experiences, take inventory and watch
what happens in the future. There'll be some things
happen to you in the future that are unpleasant and
maybe some to me too, but I can tell you what
I'm gonna do when anything unpleasant happens to me, I'm gonna immediately transmit
it into something pleasant. Immediately, and then I'm
still talking about the fundamentals of faith. Self-respect expressed
through harmony with one's own conscience is certainly
an important factor in applied faith. Self-respect expressed
through harmony with one's own conscience, isn't it a marvelous
thing that the creator set up in everybody a judge
advocate that tells you the right thing and the wrong thing, you don't have to ask anybody. Isn't that a marvelous thing. You don't have to ask anybody
what's right or wrong, your own conscience tells you, unless you convert it into
a conspirator instead of a collaborator by choking it
off and not responding to it as so many people do. Your conscious can be not only a guide, but it can all be corrupted
towards a conspirator to help you cover up your meanness. And a lot of people use
it for just that purpose who believe me they have it choked off. If that were true there
couldn't be so many brutes loose in the world
today concocting plans for starting bigger and better wars. They have no conscience, they've
killed off the conscience. That conscience is a marvelous thing. And next, to create a
mental attitude favorable for the expression of faith. Now, here's what you do. First of all, know what you
want and determine what you have to give in return for it. Know what you want to life. And I mean not only in your major purpose, but in your minor purposes. What kind of a house you wanna live in? What kind of a car you wanna drive? What kind of a wardrobe you want? What kind of an education you
want your children to have? What kind of a present
you're gonna buy your wife for her birthday? And you better be sure
to buy her one every time if you wanna keep on good terms with her. What kind of a cake are you
gonna bake for your husband on his birthday? And you better make it a good one. (student laughing) Did you know ladies and gentleman, married ladies and
gentlemen in particular, did you know it's not the big
things in the relationship between a man and his wife that count, it is the little niceties,
the little things that count. Well, it's a little
niceties, the little things. The little things that
my wife cooks up for me, and I don't mean in food, but the little parties, the little visits, the trips that she cooks
up for me when I'm home. They don't come out
for so much in one way, and yet another way
they're very sentimental, and it keeps that
relationship alive that we had before we were married, we're
still courting each other. I think I do more of a
courting job now than I did before, because after
all I not only got her, I have to keep her. (applause) Totally have a lot of fun with
these off the cuff remarks. You don't find any of
that in the notes at all. But I just know that these
are very super intimate things that make joy in my life with be just as acceptable in your life too. I know it's the little things
in your life that make the difference between the
happiness and unhappiness. Next, when you affirm the
object of your desires through prayer, let your
imagination see yourself already in possession of the
thing that you're going after. Now you might say that
takes a lot of willpower, a lot of determination,
but if you keep at it, you'll find it's not so hard to do. In the first place it's
easy for me to do that because I'd never go after
anything that I haven't first sold myself thoroughly
on the idea that I not only have the right to get it, but that I am going to earn that right by giving something in return. And that's the best
salesmanship in the world. When you go out to sell a person an idea, or a merchandise or service, if you know positively that
you're going to give him his money's worth and
more too before you start, it does something to you that
enables you to do something to him, that enables him in
return and do something for you. It's a very acne of master salesmanship. You know, I've said this
ladies and gentlemen, several times and at the risk
of being forced into you, I'm going to repeat, that if
you want your prayer to be effective, don't wait until
the time of need to utter them. Build up the habit of prayer
when you don't need anything. And what do you pray for then? For what you already have. You give gratitude for what
you already have, don't you? Wouldn't it be an interesting
thing if I gave you a lesson assignment right now to
write down before the night, before you to bed tonight, everything that you have in
this world to be thankful for, and I'm giving you that
assignment, every one of you, and I want you to carry it on. It's gonna be one of the
surprises of your life. You may have a lot of
things you don't want, but you have a lot of things you do want. Write down a list of them
and express gratitude that you have these things that you love. And you certainly can
start with the fact that you're associated here in the
country where you have freedom of speech, freedom of
action, freedom of thought and freedom of opportunity. Certainly that would head the list. 'Cause in other countries
we don't have that much. And then you can come right
on down from that and put down all the things that you
have to be grateful for. And then start in expressing
gratitude every night and every day. Keep your mind open for
guidance from within. Now what do I mean by that you suppose. - [Students] Hunches. - [Napoleon] Yes hunches,
you'll get hunches. Don't be a, what is the word I wanna use? Disrespectful. Don't be disrespectful of hunches, treat them as civility, examine them, and you may find that some
of these very unusual hunches that you come are bringing
you messages that you need to get you over the
hump and whatever it is that you're doing. And when you are inspired by
hunches to move on some plan created by your imagination, which leads in the direction
of that which you desire, accept the plan and act upon it once. Remember always that there
can be no such state of mind as faith without appropriate action, faith without deeds is dead. And when overtaken by defeat
as you may be many times, remember that man's faith is
tested many times and your defeat may be only one
of your testing times. Isn't that an astounding
and an encouraging thing to recognize is when
you're meeting with defeat, that's probably in the
eyes of your creator, you're only being tested
to see whether you're a man or a worm, and believe
you me we all go through that testing time, and the
ones that survive these tests and come out on top with an abiding faith are the ones that become
truly great in life. I don't think there's
any doubt in the world, but what is the part of the
creator's plan to see that everybody amounts to
anything above mediocrity, must pay the price of
undergoing test after test as to his faith. I don't think there's
any doubt about that. I see evidence everywhere
that that's true. Any negative state of mind
was the story of the power of faith and result in a negative climax. Your state of mind is everything. Why do you suppose that in
my notes here you notice that I have underscored, your
state of mind is everything. I underscored for emphasis. Why do you suppose I wanted
to emphasize that statement? (indistinct) That's right, that's the only
thing you have control over. The only thing in this world
that you have control over is your state of mind, and
certainly that connotes the fact that the creator
intended that to be the most important asset that
you have as it is because with the use of that mind, you can project it into any objective or to the attainment
of any end you choose, your education, your
background, your nationality, your creed, has nothing whatsoever to do with your ability to achieve. It's the state of mind that you maintain. That's the thing that determines how, and what and when you achieve. To me that's the most profound
thing in all of the knowledge of mankind, the most
profound of all of this, is the fact that the humblest
person can take possession of his own mind, he can
cover it any way he chooses, he can project it into high
places or into the gutter. He can make it a success or
he can make it a failure. Just the change of his mental attitude, changes from success to
failure almost instantly. A burning desire is the
sort of material of which faith is created. Do you know what a burning desire is? - [Student] Obsession. - [Napoleon] That's right,
obsession or desire. Obsessional means a desire
that takes possession of you, obsesses you. Now there're a lot of
desires in the world, but they're not burning
desires and they're not obsession desires and most
people in their whole life never express or never experience an obsessional desire for anything. We started out with
hopes, not too definite, but faith hopes for things and wishes. We wish for, everybody
wishes for a lot of money without having to work for it. Well, maybe not everybody, but
of course my students know, but a lot of people do, most people I'd say, wish for things, wish for the Cadillac when
they're driving a Ford. If you want a Cadillac car and
you make up your mind to have it, get out there and see
that the men under you or the other job that you're
holding the seeds that you put into it and that which will
entitle you a Cadillac car. But if you don't want a Cadillac car, chances are you'll drive
a Ford or something else for the rest of your life. You have to want things. You have to want them
with a burning desire. And then you have to do something
about that burning desire. What is it? - [Students] Action. - [Napoleon] Action. You've got to start it
right where you stand, showing that you do have
faith in your ability. Start right where you stand with action. Now here is a lot of examples
of men of achievement. I'm not going to go over them. You know them, but there is one down here that I particularly want
to call your attention to, that is Ms. Hellen Keller, who believed that she
would learn to talk despite the fact that she had lost
the use of her speech, her sight and her hearing. Can you imagine that loss? To lose early in life of her speech, her sight and her hearing. She couldn't hear, she couldn't
see and she couldn't speak. And yet, did you know, of
course you do know that Ms. Helen Keller became
one of the best educated women in the world. She's in contact with
more of public affairs and civic affairs and
conditions all over the world and the maintains of the women
who have all of their senses. This is an astounding thing. And all she has to go by is the vibration. If you speak to her she put
her fingers up to her lips and she can tell what you're
saying by her fingertips, partly by vibration. Think a woman with a
handicap at that time, all the way through life,
getting joy out of life, rendering useful service, making speeches. She's learned a profession to talk, doing a great work whereas the
majority of people would have settled for a tin cup and
a bunch of lead pencils on a street cutter, with any
one of those afflictions. While I was on the staff
of Franklin D Roosevelt, I passed at the corner
of Pennsylvania Avenue and the street running by the White House, everyday I passed a man
sitting there with a tin cup and some pencils. I became acquainted to that man, he had lost the use of his legs. He had the same affliction as
Franklin D Roosevelt exactly, and it happened about the same time. And I found out that he
had even a better education than Franklin D Roosevelt had, but out there you are, out there
with a tin cup and pencils, living by begging. Just a block away there was
a man with the most important responsible position in the whole world, running a great nation, who
also had lost the use of his legs, but he hadn't lost
the use of his brain, he hadn't lost confidence in himself. These afflictions that
come along sometimes they turn out to be a great blessing, they teach us that very
often they teach us that we can get along without an
eye or without both eyes, or without legs and without hands, we get along without a lot of
things if we have the right mental attitude toward what's left of us, That's important. If you would have faith
keep your mind on that which you want and not on that
which you do not want. And how do you go about that, how does one go about keeping his mind off of the things he doesn't want? (indistinct) Look up that word transmute
and see what it means. Look it up the dictionary,
you know of it generally, but look it up because
it'll be more impressive in your subconscious mind. The way you keep your mind off
the things you don't want is to try and spare your mind
over two things you do want and start talking about
them, start giving thanks for already processing them. It sounds perfectly silly to
anybody who doesn't know what you're doing but it wont
sound silly to you because you know what you're doing, you're talking to your subconscious mind, you're re-educating yourself, you're keeping your mind
fixed on things you want and off of the things you don't want, and in order to do that
you have to keep talking, you have to keep thinking, you can't talk without thinking, well some people can
but most of them can't. (students laughing) Keep on talking about things you want, and if you ever feel blue or discouraged, or lacking encouraged, I'll
tell you a good remedy for it, may I? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] Sit down and take a tablet, and start numbering number one, the thing that you want most in life, number two, the thing
that you want next most, number three, the thing
you want next most, and when one gets down to
the kind a house you live, describe the lot that you wanna go on whether you wanna go in a lot of acreage, on top of the hill or down below the road, or above the road, how many
rooms you want that house to have, how you want each room furnished, why you have a grand time
furnishing those rooms. Well I believe that one of the most, well be better than window
shopping because you can go the limit in your own
mind and window shopping, you only have two legs
you can only walk so far. Do a little mental window
shopping and believe you me you'll get your mind off
of that moodiness you will get it on to something
that's constructive, and you'll be educating
your subconscious mind to keep on the right side of the street and away from the other
side of the railroad tracks. The assignment I'm giving
you now is not foolish, it's not facetious, it's a real assignment and you'll get real joy out of doing it, start right in doing something physically, writing down the things that you want when anything bothers you. I don't know why it is that
when a person makes up his mind what he wants and becomes
determined to get it that the whole powers of the
universe seem to come to his aid to see that he gets it, I don't know why that is, but I'll tell you one
thing I know that it is, and that's enough for me. A lot of things this world that I can see, a lot of advantages I can use, that I don't understand, but I don't need to understand them, I know which button to press
to get to the result I want and I don't need to know what
happens between the pressing of that button and the
result that happens. I know that if you can follow
the instructions in this philosophy, I know that you'll
be able to take possession of your own mind, you will
be able to get the things out of life that you want, you will be able to make life
pay off on your own terms, I know that. How would I know do you suppose
that any person can actually make life pay off
point-by-point on his own terms instead of accepting the circumstance, how would I know that? - [Students] By your experience. - [Napoleon] There is
only one way in this world that I could possibly
know that and that's by my own experiences. I can tell you as sincerely
as I've been standing here on this platform talking to you
tonight there isn't a blessed thing in this world that
I want that I don't have, or can get easily. Not anything. What an astounding statement that is. If you go back just a few years ago what an astounding statement
it is because so broadly in contrast to what I might
have said a few years back before I'd learned the
secret of getting everything that I want. Do you know there was a time
when I was carrying around in my own pocket the matches
with which I was sitting my house of opportunity on
fire and didn't know it. And I finally got rid of those matches, I began to build that
house of opportunity, and the comments to find
out that the house resembled the picture of it that
I had built in my mind, right down to the finest detail. There is no such thing as a blanket state, you must have a definite objective, a purpose, a goal, before you
can have faith in anything. Faith is a mental attitude
wherein the mind is cleared of all fears and doubts and
directed toward the attainment of something definite
through the inspiration of infinite intelligence. Faith is guidance, it is nothing more. Had you ever thought about
that faith is guidance, it's nothing more than that. Faith is not gonna go out
and get you that Cadillac, or that mink coat, or that
new house that you want, or that better job or
that better business, or all those clients that you
need if you're a professional, faith's not gonna do that, but faith will guide you
as to how you can do it, and then you find that there
is always a part you must play. The creator wisely raised us
so that we can produce our food from the soil of the earth, everything that we eat, use or wear, comes from the earth, everything, and infinite intelligence is
very wisely provided a system whereby you can be sure of
getting your food out of the soil of the earth. How, by complying with the laws of nature. You go out there and you plant the seed, you plant it in soil that you
have examined to make sure it has the elements in there
that you want into the plant. You plant it at the right season, you plant it at the right
depth in the ground. All of those things you do
in the way of going the extra mile, you do them in advance, and then what do? You go back the next day
and start harvesting do you? - [Student] No. - [Napoleon] No, you time it properly, you find out what nature
requires in order to produce a, to convert or transmute
a seed of wheat into a stalk of wheat with 500
or 1,000 grains on it. And you comply with nature's law, that's what you do, and it's the same thing
identically in connection with this subject of faith in anything
else you expect guidance, you do your part, you
have to do your part, you always find there's
a part that you must do in connection with any example
of a demonstration of faith. Faith will do nothing for you
if you expect everything to be done for you outside of yourself. Its guidance that you
expect to get the answer that you have it. When faith probably, notice
that word probably down there, why do you think I say faith
probably works through the subconscious section of the mind? I'll tell you why I put it there because nobody knows definitely
whether it does or not, it's a theory and for
wanting of a better theory, I'm using it. It appears to work through
the subconscious section of the mind, the subconscious
acting as the gateway between the conscious section of the mind
and infinite intelligence. My picture, my mental
picture of what happens when you pray properly, is
that you first condition your mind you know what it is you want, and then you transfer over
to your subconscious mind a clearer picture that
subconscious is the intermediary, or the gatekeeper between you
and infinite intelligence, it's the only one that
could turn on the power of the infinite intelligence for you, it's the only way you can reach
into infinite intelligence in my book of rules. And if that isn't correct, as far as I'm concerned
might as well be correct because that's the way I get it to work. Now the definite essential
steps in the development of self reliance based on faith. If there's anything that people
need more than everything else it's self reliance,
belief in yourself. Here are the steps, I'm not
going to go over all of them, but I'm going to call your attention to the most important ones. First of all adopt a major
purpose and begin at once to attain it, that's the
first step in building self confidence. You know, when you know what you want, and you're starting getting it, you have a measure of self-reliance, you're demonstrating a
measure of self-reliance because if you didn't believe in yourself you wouldn't even begin with doing it. The very fact that you start
even though you're a long way from attaining the thing
you're going after, shows that you have a measure
or degree of self-reliance, and the more you pursue that idea the stronger that belief will be. And next associate as many
as possible of the nine basic motives with the object
of the definite major purpose. In other words, have
yourself inspired by as many as possible of those nine basic motives when you go after anything. You know you've had this
experience that you wanted something very badly and in
order to get to something that you wanted very badly,
a material something, you made some extra
money that you couldn't lay your hands on, you
didn't have in the bank, you weren't earning it, what do you do in against that kind? - [Students] Borrow. - [Napoleon] Borrow (laughs) A lot of people do, there
is always something else to it that you can do that's
more important than borrowing. (indistinct) You begin to connive and work
out some sort of the scheme to earn some more money don't you? That's what you do. (indistinct) My little son Blair when he
was about 6 or 7 years old wanted a nice, an electrical
train it cost $50, and it was more than we felt
we could give him at that time because we had to give the
other two children a $50 gift too, and I told them this,
oh, I didn't ask you to buy me anything, I said,
well that's different, fine I just want your
approval to buy the train and he made out the
order, Lionel train $50, and there came a snow,
a big snow the next day and he borrowed the shovel from
the janitor and he went down the street cleaning off sidewalk. Didn't ask anybody if he could do it, just started cleaning off the sidewalks and it all come out and get
into conversation he'd say, oh I thought it'd be a nice
thing to just clean off your sidewalks, I see you
haven't started doing it yet I thought it'd be nice if you'd
appreciate it and invariably they'd give him a quarter, half
dollar, sometimes a dollar, one man gave him $5, and before the end of the month, long before the end of
the month he had his $50 and $10 more that he had done himself. His mother thought that he
ought not to be permitted to do that, kind of disgrace to us
to let him go down the street cleaning offside, well
I said, disgrace my eye, they ought to find out who we are, we can raise a child like this, how we do it. Motive and write out a list
of all the advantages of your definite major purpose and
call these into your mind many times daily thereby making
your mind success conscious. Did you know that in order to be healthy, you have to be health
conscious did you know that? No matter what other precautions you take, if your mental attitude
is not health conscious, if you're not thinking in terms of health, you're not expecting that
you're going to be healthy, you're not going to be, no matter what else you do. And it's the same thing
with reference to success, if you accept any kind of a fear complex, or an inferiority complex, if you don't expect success of yourself, and develop a success
expectation or consciousness, you're not gonna be a success, you just have to do that. If your major purpose is to
achieve some material thing, or money, see yourself
already in possession of it. When you call into your consciousness, this is a vital importance
because there again is coming into play your power of faith, and if your faith is great
enough that you can see the thing already in your
possession even before you start to get it then
you are not making use of applied faith. And associate with people
who are in sympathy with you and your major purpose and
lead them to encourage you in every way possible. This has referenced only two
close friends or members of your mastermind alliance, don't disclose your aims the
purposes to people who are not absolutely dependable,
loyal and close to you. Especially loyal, though
surprising how sometimes people to whom you disclose your
ideas, if they're good ideas, they go around the corner
and beat you to the draw they're using your ideas
before you use them. Or they're saying something
to discourage you, and let not a single day
pass without making at least one definite move toward the attainment of your major purpose. Faith is a positive
mental attitude in action, and your mental attitude
is reflected in every word you speak and it speaks
louder than your words. Your mental attitude is the
sum total of your thoughts at a given time. A positive mental attitude
has its roots in the spiritual wealth of one's soul. How true that is and what a
wonderful statement that is. A positive mental attitude has its roots in the spiritual wealth of one's soul. Mental attitude is the medium
by which adversities may be transmuted into benefits
and so the list goes. Now you'll find some of
those that appeal to you more than others, print
them out them out in a card or in some form where you can put them up, where you can see them each day, make them your own, surround
yourself with suggestions, everywhere you look, you
see something that suggest a positive mental attitude. You'll notice when you
go into the office of a successful person or into the
home of a successful person, if you can find his den, or
the place where he himself withdraws unto himself, you'll
find that often times he has himself surrounded with pictures of those whom he considers great,
oftentimes you have mottos on the walls I've seen hundreds of them, I walked into Ed Barnes's office one time and I found out that
he had over 500 mottos done up in beautiful cards, hand written every one of them, must have cost him a small fortune. I walked into my friend
Jennings Randolph's office when he was in Congress in
Washington and I found he had all of the walls of his
congressional office covered with the pictures of men
whom he considered great, he did that live in the
environment of the great, in the environment of things
that kept his mind positive. Start in where you are, in
your home, in your business, in your office, wherever
you stay the most, maybe it's in your bedroom the
side you sleep every night. So I did learn to put up something that's will give you a positive thought
just before we go to bed, and it will remind you
every time you go in there. You'll be surprised at how
much good it'll do you. Well the first half of the
evening is devoted to going the extra mile, and of course
as you know that means the rendering of more service
and better service and you're paid to render, doing it all the time and
doing it in a pleasant pleasing mental attitude. One of the reasons why
there are so many failures in the world today is that
the majority of people do not even go the first mile
let alone the second one, and oftentimes if they do go
the first mile they gripe as they go along and make
themselves darn nuisance. - [Student] No. - [Napoleon] People wrong. (students laughing) I said darn nuisance. I suppose you know the type
'cause that doesn't apply to any of you because if you
are like that before you got into this philosophy, you're
going to get over it very fast. I don't know of any one
quality or trait that can get a person an opportunity quicker
than to go out of his way or her way to do somebody a favor. Do something useful. It's the one thing that you
can do in life that you don't have to ask anybody's
privilege of doing it. As a matter of fact, on that
if you're going to be free and independent and self determining and financially independent in old age, you might just as well make
up your mind that you can never be that unless by
a stroke of good luck, rich uncle or rich aunt die
or something of that sort, unless you form the habit
of going the extra mile and make yourself as near
indispensable as you possibly can. I don't know of any way that
anybody can make himself or herself in indispensable
except by going the extra mile, by rendering some sort of
service that you're not expected to render and rendering it in the right sort of a mental attitude. Now that mental attitude is important. If you gripe about going the
extra mile the chances are they'd want to bring
you very many returns. Where do I get my authority
do you suppose for emphasizing this principle of going the extra mile, what causes me to emphasize that? - [Student] Experience. - [Napoleon] I get it by
looking around and watching the way nature does things and
anytime that you can follow the way or the habits of nature you're not going to go wrong. And stated conversely anytime
that you fail to recognize the way nature does things and do not go along you are going to get into
trouble sooner or later it's just a question of time. Because you do have, there
is an overall plan which this universe operates, and that
no matter what you call the first cause or that plan
of the operator of it, or the creator of it, no
matter what you call it, the resultant there's just one plan, there's just one set of natural laws, and it's up to every individual
to discover what those natural laws are and adjust
himself favorably to them. And certainly if there is
one thing that stands out above all others in nature
is that nature requests and demands that every living
thing go the extra mile in order to eat, in order to live, in order to survive. Man wouldn't survive one
season if it were not for this law of going the extra mile. Don't render a service, a
million dollars worth service a day and then expect to go and
get a check for it tomorrow, in other words if you start
out to render a million dollars worth of service, you can
perhaps have to render a little bit at a time and you'll have
to get your self recognized. While you're going through
that period of recognition the chances are that
you'll not be compensated for going the extra mile, chances are you'll have to go
the extra mile quite a little while before anybody takes notice of you. But always be careful if
you don't go the extra mile too long without someone
taking notice of you and if the right fellow
doesn't take notice, look around until you find
the right fellow who will. That's about the equivalent to saying, if your present employer doesn't
recognize you if you work for an employer well, fire
the employer sooner or later, and let his competitor
know what kind of service you're rendering. Won't hurt your chances a bit, I assure you it won't, have a little competition is going on. Nobody ever accepts a rule or
does anything without a motive and I have outlined here in this lesson, a great variety of reasons why
you should go the extra mile, I'm going to make comments on them. What do I mean by the law
of increasing returns? - [Student] Limited benefits. - [Napoleon] Benefits, yes. (indistinct) Well substantially the
law of increasing returns means that you get back
more than you give up, whether it's good or whether it's bad, whether it's positive or
whether it's negative, and that's the way the
law of nature works. Whatever you give out, whatever
you do to or for another person, or whatever you
give out from yourself, comes back to you multiplied, greatly multiplied in kind, no exception to that whatsoever. Again there is the question of timing. The coming back process
doesn't always come back very quickly sometimes it's
longer than you expect, but you may be sure that if
you send out some negative influence that it's
going to come back on you sooner or later and you may
not recognize what caused it but it'll come back,
it won't overlook you, that law of increasing returns is eternal, it's automatic, it's working all the time, and it's just as inexorable
as the law of gravitation, there's nobody in the world
that can circumvent it, or go around it, or have it
suspended for one moment, it's operating all the time. The law of increasing returns
means that when you go out of your way to render more
service and better service and you're paid to render, it's impossible for you not to
get back more than you really did because eventually that
law of increasing returns takes care of that. If you're working for
a salary for instance, it takes care of it in additional wages, in greater responsibilities,
in promotions, in opportunities that will
come to either go into business for yourself in a thousand different ways it'll come back and oftentimes
this coming back process doesn't come back from the source to which you render the service. Don't be too afraid to render
service to a greedy buyer, or a greedy greedy employer, it makes no difference to
whom you render this service, if you render it in good
faith and good spirit, and keep on doing it as a matter of habit, it's just as the impossible
for you not to be compensated as it is to be or not
to be at the same time. Well that law of increasing
returns now just remember, that when you start
applying this principle, that you don't have to be
too careful about the person whom you render it, as a
matter of fact what you should really do is to apply this
principle with everybody you come into contact no matter who it is, strangers and acquaintances
and business associates and relatives alike. Make it your business
to render useful service wherever you touch human
relations in any shape, form or fashion, because
the only way that you can increase the space that
you occupy in the world, and by the space that you
occupy I don't mean necessarily that your physical space but
the mental and spiritual space as well will be determined by
the quality and the quantity of the service that you render. The quality and the quantity
plus the mental attitude in which you render, now those
are the determining factors and say how far you will go in life, how much you'll get out of life, how much you'll enjoy life and how much peace of mind you'll have. And next, it brings one to the
favorable attention of those who can and often do
provide opportunities for self promotion, the favorable
attention of people. You go into any organization
and if you're alert minded and take notice you'll
find out who the people are that are going the extra-mile, you'll find out very quickly. And also if you watch the
procedure and the records of those people who are going
the extra mile you'll find that when there are promotions around, they're the ones that get the promotions, they don't have to ask for them, it's not necessary at all, because the employers are just
naturally looking around for people who will go the extra mile. And next it tends to permit
the one to become indispensable in many different human
relationships and therefore enables one to command more
than the average compensation. But I'll tell you one thing
that's not in my notes that it does, and I want you to know this. It does something to
your soul inside of you, makes you feel better. And if it doesn't do a single, if there's not another reason
in the world why you should go the extra mile I'd say
that would be adequate. You know there are a lot of
things in life to cause us to have negative feelings, causes
unpleasant experience and feelings, lot of things in life, this is one thing that you
can do for yourself that'll always give you a pleasant feeling, and if you go back in your own
experiences I'm sure that you remember that you never did
a kind thing for anybody that you didn't get a
great deal of joy of, maybe the other fella
didn't appreciate it, that's in unimportant,
it's just like love. To have loved alone is a great privilege, and it doesn't make any
difference whatsoever whether your love is returned by the other person. You've had the benefit by the
the emotion of love itself, and so it is by the principle
of going to extra mile. It'll do something to you,
it'll give you greater courage, it'll enable you to overcome inhibitions, and inferiority complexes
that you've been storing up back down through the years. Just this stepping out
and making yourself useful is all about it. And don't be too surprised
when you do something courteous or useful to
somebody who's not expecting it and they look at you in
a quizzical sort of way as much as to say well, I just
wonder why you're doing that. Some people will be a little bit surprised when you go out of your
way to be useful to them. Also it leads to mental
growth and physical perfection in various forms of service
thereby developing greater ability and skill in
one's chosen vocations. If you're delivering a lecture, or making up your notebook, or filling your job, whatever
it is and that you do in life that you're going to repeat
make up your mind that every time you do it you will
excel all previous efforts on your part. In other words you're a
constant challenge to yourself, and you'll find how quickly
and how rapidly you will grow if you'll go at it in that way. I have never delivered a
lecture in my life that I didn't intend to deliver it better
than I did previously. I don't always do it,
but that's my intention, and it makes no difference what
kind of an audience I have, whether I have a big
class or a small class, I don't often have small
classes but sometimes I have had small classes, but I'm just
as much into a small class as a big one. Not alone because I wanna
be useful to my students, but because I wanna grow
and I wanna develop, and out of effort, out of struggle, out of use of your faculties comes growth. And then it enables one to
profit by the law of contrast, had you ever thought about that? And I'll tell you right now
you won't have to advertise that one very much because
it'll advertise itself, 'cause the majority of people
around you are not going to be going the extra mile and that's all to the good for you. If everybody went the extra mile, this would be a grand world to live in, but you couldn't cash
in on this principle of definitely you can now, because you'd have tremendous amount of competition, but don't worry you're not gonna have it. I can assure you you're not. Practically be in the class by yourself, there will be some cases perhaps where people with whom you're working, or with whom you're
associated will be showing up for not going the first mile
let alone the second one, and they won't like it. Of course you're gonna
cry and all or even quit and go back to your old
habits just because the other fella doesn't like what
you're doing or are you? - [Students] No. - [Napoleon] Of course not. Listen ladies and gentlemen, it's your individual responsibility
in this world to succeed that's your sole responsibility, and you can't afford to
let anybody's ideas or idiosyncrasies or notions get
in the way of your success you can't afford to do that. You should be fair, you should
be just with other people but beyond that you're under no obligation to let anybody's opinion
or either you stop you from going out and being successful. I'd like to see the person
that could stop me from being successful I just like
to take a look at him, see what he looks like, and I want you to feel
that way about it too. I want you to make up your
mind that you're going to put into these laws into operation, and that you're not gonna
let anybody stop you from doing it. Also it leads to the development
of a positive, pleasing, mental attitude which is among
the more important traits of a pleasing personality,
not among the more important, it is the most important
one as a matter of fact, it's the first trait of
a pleasing personality as you will see when
you get to that lesson. A positive mental attitude. Isn't it a marvelous thing
to know what you can do to change the chemistry of your brain so that you're positive instead of negative? Isn't it a wonderful thing to know that you can do that so easily. How, for getting in
that frame of mind where you wanna do something useful
the other fellow without rendering services with one
hand and picking his pocket with the other while you're doing it. Doing it just because of the
goodness that you get out of doing it, knowing that eventually
if you render more service and better service than
you're paid to render, sooner or later you will be
paid for more than you do and paid willingly, that's
the way the law works, that's the law of compensation, and that's an eternal
law it never forgets, it has a perfectly marvelous
bookkeeping system, and you may be sure that
when you're giving out the right kind of service
and the right kind of a mental attitude that
you're piling up credits for you somewhere they'll
come back to you multiplied sooner or later. Also it tends to develop
a keen alert imagination, because it is a habit which
keeps one continuously seeking new and more
efficient ways of rendering useful service, now that's
an important thing isn't it? It develops your imagination
because you begin to look around and to see how many places, how many ways and means there
are of helping other people, to find themselves. And in helping the other
fella to find himself, you find yourself. Incidentally one of the most
outstanding things that I discovered in my research
was when you have a problem, or an unpleasant situation
and you don't know how to solve it, you've done everything you know, you've tried every source
that you know anything about and you're still at a stalemate, there is always one thing that you can do, and if you do that one
thing the chances are that you not only will solve your problem, but you'll learn a great lesson. What is that one thing that you can do- - [Students] Find somebody that you can- - [Napoleon] Find somebody
who has an equal or a greater problem and start where you stand, then and there to help that other person, and lo and behold it
unlocks in you something, some cells of the brain,
it unlocks some cells that permits infinite intelligence
to come into your brain and give you the answer to
the solution of your problem. Now I don't know why that works, but do you know how I
know that it does work? You know why I can make
that statement so positive and not disqualify it? You know how I arrived at that decision? (muffled speech) By trying it out hundreds
and hundreds of times myself, and by seeing it tried out a
hundreds and hundreds of times by my students whom I have recommended to do that same thing. What a simple thing that is. I don't know what it does to you? I don't know why it works. A lot of things in life I don't know, a lot of things you don't
know and some that you do know that you don't do much about. Now this is one of them that
I don't know anything about but I do something about, I follow the law because I know that if I need my own mind to
be opened up to receive opportunities, the best
way in the world open it up is to start looking around to see how many other people I can help. And also it develops that
important factor of personal initiative, you know gets
you to habit of looking around for something useful to
do and going out and doing it without somebody telling you to do it. And that's a mighty important thing. You know that old man procrastination is, he's a sorrow old bird, and he causes a lot of
trouble in this world, people putting off things
to the day after tomorrow which they should have
done day before yesterday. And we're all guilty of it, every one of us. I'm not free of it I know, and I know you're not. I'm free rather than
I was a few years back I'll tell you that. I can find a lot of things to do now. Why do I find them because
I get joy out of doing them, and any time you're going the extra mile you're gonna get joy
out of what you're doing otherwise you won't be
going the extra mile. And it's going to develop
this quality of personal initiative and over time you overcome this quality of procrastination. It also serves to build
the confidence of others in one's integrity and general ability, and it aids one in mastering
the destructive habit of procrastination. It develops definiteness of
purpose without which one cannot hope for success, that alone will be enough to justify it. It develops definiteness of purpose, it gives you an objective, so as you don't go round
and round in circles like a goldfish in a bowl always
coming back to where you started with nothing that you
didn't start out with. Definiteness of purpose
comes out of this business going the extra mile. And I'll tell you another thing that does, it's not in my notes. It enables you to make your
work a joy instead of a burden, in other words you get
to where you love it, and I think maybe that if
you're not engaged in the labor of love and life, you're wasting a lot of your time. I think one of the greatest
joys in the world is once being permitted to engage in the
thing that he would rather do, than all other things. And surely when you're going
the extra mile you're doing just exactly that because
you don't have to do it. Nobody expects you to do it, nobody asked you to do it. Certainly no employer would
ask the employees to go the extra mile or he might ask
to help out once in a while, but it's a regular thing
he wouldn't do that. So it's something that you
do on your own initiative, and it gives dignity to the labor, gives dignity even or do
nothing but digging a ditch, and you're doing it well,
you're helping somebody, you have certain dignity attached
to that takes the fatigue and the unpleasantness out of the labor. What is the most important
application you ever made in your life of this business
of going the extra mile out of which you got the
greatest amount of joy? Think hard please. Tell me. - [Female Student] Being married. - [Napoleon] What? - [Female Student] Being married. - [Napoleon] Being married,
lesson is getting pretty hot. (laughs) How about before getting married? - [Students] Study. - [Napoleon] Yeah, believe
me I've spent a lot of time burning midnight oil and later than that, and I didn't consider it hard work at all. Also it was my own idea. I'd only use my initiative
but I got a lot of joy out of doing it and I made it pay off. Marvelous thing how long you
can go when you're courting the girl of your choice or being courted by the man of your choice, marvelous how much sleep you can lose and still not be seriously hurt by it. (students laughing) Wouldn't be a wonderful thing
if you could put the same attitude in though your relations
with people professionally or in the business that
you put in the courtship, wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? And wouldn't this be a
wonderful world to live in. We're gonna start back sparking again. (student laughing) It's gonna start at
home with our own mates. Believe me I couldn't begin
to tell you the number of married couples that I've
started on a new sparking spree, and they get a lot of joy out of it, saves a lot of friction a lot of argument, cuts down expenses. (students laughing) Go ahead and laugh. Do you good. Now I don't mean to be
facetious about this, I mean I'm very serious
about it when I say that, that is one of the finest
places in the world to start going the extra mile. When you start going the extra
mile with somebody that you haven't been going with, sit
down have a little serious talk with them, just tell them that
you've changed your attitude and you want a mutual agreement
for both partners to change the attitude, from here
on all of us are going the extra mile, we're
going to relate ourselves together on a different
basis where we'll all get joy out of it and get more peace of mind, and more happiness in living. Wouldn't it be a wonderful
thing if you went home tonight and had that kind of a
speech with your mate? Yes, it would be wonderful right? It wouldn't hurt. It might help. Now the mate might not be
impressed by it but you will be. Nothing to hinder you from enjoying it. And that person in business
that you haven't getting along so well there now, if
you went in tomorrow morning with a smile and walked over
to him or her and took his hand and shook hands and said now listen pal, from here on now let you and
I enjoy working together. What would you say? (muffled speech) Wouldn't work huh? oh yes it would. Oh yes it would. You try it and see. Try it and see. You know there's a little
thing that we have called pride and there's one thing that
does more damage in this world than any other one, it's that
little thing called pride. Don't be afraid to humiliate
yourself if it's going to be a little better human relations
with the people that you have to associate with all the time. (upbeat music) All of those remarks in the
last five minutes are not in my notes but I'll tell you where they were, they were in my heart. Thank you. (applause) And one of the reasons why
you and I get along so well is it very often I deviate from
my notes and go down into my heart and dig up things for
you that I want you to have, little morsels of food for
your souls I want you to have because I know they're good. I know they're good because I
know where I got them and what they've done for me
down through the years. Also going the extra mile
is the only thing which gives one the right to ask
for promotions or more pay, did you ever stop to think about that? You don't have a leg to stand
on in going into the purchaser of your services or asking for
more money or for promotion to a better job unless for
some time previously you have been going the extra mile,
doing more than you're paid for, because obviously if you're
doing no more than your paid for then you're being paid
for all you're entitled to aren't you? Certainly you are. So you have to first start
going the extra mile and putting the other feller on the
obligation to it before you can ask any favors, I'll tell you none of it. If you have enough people
whom you have put under obligations to you by going
the extra mile when you need some favor you can always
turn one direction rather and get it, it's a nice thing
to know that you have that kind of credits hanging around isn't it? I want you to have that kind
of credit with other people, and I want to teach you the technique by which you can do that. We get our cues to the
soundness of the principle of going the extra mile
by observing nature, and here's quite a bit of
illustration regarding that. You will see that nature goes
the extra mile by producing enough of everything for
her needs together with an over plus for emergencies and waste. The blooms on the trees, fishes in the seas, in the water, you don't just produce enough
fish to perpetuate the species she produces enough to feed
the snakes and the alligators and everything else and those
that died of natural causes are still enough to
perpetuate the species. Nature is most bountiful
in her business of going the extra mile and in return, she is very demanding in seeing
that every living creature goes the extra mile. Bees are provided with honey
as compensation for their services and fertilizing the
flowers in which the honey is attractively stored, but they
have to perform the service to get the honey and it must
be performed in advance. Nature you've heard it said
that the birds of the air and the beasts of the jungle
neither we've more spin but they always live and eat. But you know if you
observe wildlife at all, they don't eat without
performing some sort of service without working,
without doing something before they can eat. Take a flock of a common oil
cornfield crows for instance, they have to organize, they
have to have sentinels to put on further protection, they travel in flocks, they have sentinels, they
have codes by which to warn one another, they have
to do a lot of educating before they can even eat safely. And nature requires man
to go the extra mile, he's got to go out and
he's going to have food, and all food comes out of the ground, and if he's going to have food, he's got to plant seed, he can't live entirely on
what the nature plants. Not in civilized life you can't, at least over on the islands
where some places were not civilized I suppose they
depend on eating raw coconuts in handy, but in civilized
life we have to plant our food in the ground, we have to
clear the ground first, we have to plow it, we have to harrow it, we have to fence it, we
have to protect it against predatory animals and so forth, all of that cost labor and time and money, and all that has to be done in advance or you're not going to eat. I wouldn't have any trouble
at all selling this idea that nature makes everybody
go the extra mile to a farmer, he knows that beyond
any question of doubt. He knows every minute of his life, that if he doesn't go the extra mile, he doesn't eat, he doesn't
everything to sell. A new employee for instance
going into a new job can't come right in the
middle then start going the extra mile and then immediately
demand the top wages, or the best job in the place, it doesn't work out that way. You have to establish
a record, a reputation, you have to get yourself
recognized and received in this business of going
the extra mile before you can begin to put pressure
on to get compensation back. As a matter of fact, if you
go the extra mile in the right sort of mental attitude the
chances are a thousand to one you'll ever have to ask for
compensation according to the service you render because it'll be attended to you automatically. In a way of promotions, in
the way of increased salary, and throughout the whole
universe everything has been so arranged through the law of compensation, so accurately described by Emerson, that nature's budget is
balanced so to speak, everything has its opposite
equivalent to something else. Positive and negative
in every unit of energy, day and night, hot and
cold, success and failure, sweet and sour, happiness and misery, man and woman, everywhere
and everything one may see the law of action and
reaction in operation. Everything you do, everything you think, every thought that you
release causes a reaction. If not on somebody else on the
person releasing the thought because you never as a matter
of fact when you release a thought you're not through with it. Every thought that you
express silently even, becomes a definite part of the
pattern of your subconscious mind and if you store in that
subconscious mind enough, enough negative thoughts you'll
be predominantly negative. And if you follow the habit of
releasing all of the positive thoughts your subconscious
pattern will be predominantly positive and you will attract
to you the things all of the things that you want, if
you're negative you repel the things that you want and attract
only the things you don't want, that's a law of nature too. And this business of going
the extra mile is one of the finest ways that I know of of
educating your subconscious mind to attract to you
the things you want, and to repel the things you don't want. You can put it down as an
established fact that if you neglect to develop and apply
this principle of going the extra mile you will never
become personally successful and you will never become
financially independent. The reason I happen to know
it sound is you see I've had a great privilege over you
that you haven't had yet but you will have in time. I had the privilege of observing
a great many thousands of people some of whom applied
the principle going the extra-mile and some of whom did not, and I have had the privilege
of finding out what happened to those who did and those who didn't, and I know beyond any question
of a doubt that nobody ever rises above ordinary or
stations in life or mediocrity without the habit of going the extra mile it just doesn't happen. If I have discovered one case,
just one case where somebody went on to the top without
going the extra mile I would say then there are exceptions, but
I am in position to say there are no exceptions because I
have never found that one case, and I can definitely tell you
from my own experiences if I have been every minute of my
life as I have never had a major benefit of any kind in
the world that I didn't get it as a result of going the extra mile. Now that's the thing about what you do, I want you to become self-determining, so you can do these things
without the help of anybody. That's the time when the
payoff will come to you, when you can go out and
do anything in this world that you wanna do and whether
anybody wants you to do it or whether they wanna help
you or whether they don't, you can do it on your own. I wanna tell you that's one
that greatest most glorious feelings that I know anything about, knowing that device that
you're talking to you, that whatever I wanted to do, I can do it, I don't have to ask
anybody, not even my wife, but if I had to ask her I would, 'cause I'm on good terms with her. Then here's a little item now
that's not to be sniffed at, peace of mind that I
got out of all this work coming out of those twenty
years of going the extra mile. Do you have any idea ladies
and gentlemen how many people are in the world at any
one time who are willing to do anything for 20 years in
succession without getting something back out of it? Do you have any idea how
many people there are in this world who are willing to
do something three days in succession without being
sure they're gonna get something out of it? - [Students] No. - [Napoleon] You'd be surprised
if you found out how few there are, you would be surprised. And overlooking one of the
grandest opportunities that a human being could possibly have, especially here this country
of ours where you really can create our own destiny, where we can express
ourselves in any way that you wanna do, speech is free,
activities are free, education is free, a wonderful
opportunity to get right here and go the extra mile in any
direction you wanna travel. And yet most people are not doing it. I have seen the time when
there were not so many people interested in the possible,
they were prosperous, they were doing all right,
there had no troubles to speak out, today everybody
almost has troubles, or thinks he has. Now do you know what I do
instead of finding out what's wrong with the rest of the world, you know how I put in my time? - [Student] Find out
what to do (indistinct) - [Napoleon] Yes, I try to find
out what I can do to correct this guy here, if I have to eat with him, I have to sleep with him, I have to shave in space every morning, I have to wash his face,
I have to give him a bath now and then, why you know
have no idea all the things I have to do for him, and I
have to live with the guy 24 hours a day. So I put in my time trying
to improve myself and through myself trying to improve
my friends and my students, by writing books and
by delivering lectures, and by teaching and by in other ways. And you know it pays off very
much better than what if I said out and took the old tree
over the papers and read all of the murder stories,
all of the divorce canvas, of everything that blades him
to cross the pages every day. I'm still talking about this
fella in the podium here who didn't have sense
enough not to decline Andrew Carnegie's offered to
work 20 years for nothing. In his declining years there
will be years of happiness because of the seeds of
kindness and help he hold in the hearts of others. That's a wonderful thing. You know if I had my
life to live over again, I'd live it just exactly the way I have, I'd make all the mistakes I've made, I'd make them at the time
in life when I made them, back early so I'd have time
enough to correct some of them, and that period during which I
would come into peace of mind and understanding would be
in the afternoon of life, not in the forenoon,
because I could spend it, I can take it you when
you're young you can take it, but when you pass the noon
hour and you're going to the afternoon your energies are
not as great oftentimes as they were before your physical
energy sometimes your middle capacity is not as great, and you can't take as
much trouble as you can in your days of your youth, and you haven't got so many
years left to correct the mistakes that you made. So to have the tranquility,
the peace of mind that I have today in the afternoon of life
is one of the great joys that has come out of this philosophy
and if you ask me what has been my greatest conversation
I would say that's it, because there's so many people at my age, and even much younger than that, who haven't found peace
of mind and never will, they never will because
they're looking for it in the wrong place, they're not
doing anything about it, they're expecting somebody else to do something about it for them. And that peace of mind is
something that you've got to get for yourself, you've got
to earn it first of all. That's how anybody can get peace of mind, and you'd be surprised where
you have to really start looking for it, not for the
average person looking for it, out there in the joys of
what money will buy out there the joys of recognition
and fame and fortune what have you not there, but in the humility there
one individual's own heart. I get peace of mind mostly
in that third inner wall as I described to you where the
wall is as high as eternity, where I grew in from
meditation many times each day, there's where I get my real peace of mind and I can always withdraw
into that inner wall, cut out every earthly
influence and commune with the higher forces of the universe. What a grand thing that is,
and anybody can do that, you can do that, you get through
this philosophy you'll be able to anything you wanna do
just as well or better than anything I can do, and I'm
hoping incidentally about every student that I turn out
will eventually excel me in every way that I know where possible, maybe in writing books, maybe
you take up where I left off and write better books than I wrote, why not, I haven't said the
last word in my books or in my lectures or in anything else, matter of fact I'm just a student, just a student, I think a
fairly intelligent student, but just a student on the path, and the only state of perfection
that I have is that I have actually found peace of
mind and how to get it. Engaging at least one act
of going the extra-mile every day, now you could
choose your own circumstance if it is nothing more than
telephoning an acquaintances and wishing him good fortune. You'll be surprised what
will happen to you when you begin to call up your
friends that you have been neglecting for some time
and just hear you say, well hello, you were on my mind, I was thinking about you and
I just wanted to call up and say how do you do, and I
hope you were feeling as good as I am, you'd be surprised
on what that'll do to you and what they'll do to the friend too, and it doesn't have to be
a close personal friend, just has to be somebody you know, or you may relieve some friend
from duty for half an hour or so, have some neighbor sent
over his children while he attends the movies or you might
do a little babysitting for one of your neighbors, you're
gonna be at home anyway, maybe you've got some
children of your own, maybe you know some neighbor
that would like to get off and go down to the movies which
you can't get away from your children, oh I know the children
are noise and they probably fight with your children, but
if you were a real diplomat you keep them apart, she'll be
under obligations to you and you feel that you've really
been kind by helping out somebody who otherwise wouldn't have had a little freedom. So you'd be a nice thing for
some of you people who don't have any children and say
well, could I come over and babysit for a while you go out, why don't you and your husband
go on a little courtship, go out to the movie, go
to a show let me come over babysit for you. Well of course you have to
know your neighbors pretty well in order to do that. Certainly most of you would
have some neighbor that you could approach on
some such basis as that and they wouldn't think you were crazy. (student laughing) It's not so much what you
do to the other fellow it's what you do to yourself
by finding ways and means of going the extra mile in little ways, did you know that both
the successes in life and the failures are made up of little things, very little things, so a
little in fact that often times they're overlooked, the
real reasons for success is overlooked because the things
that make success are so such small even seemingly
insignificant things. I know some people so popular
they couldn't have an enemy, they just couldn't have an enemy, and one of them is my
distinguished to business associate Mr. Stone, always going
the extra mile and look at how prosperous he is, look
how many people are going the extra miles for him. There are a lot of people who
if they didn't make good money working for Mr. Stone if
they had to do it they'd pay him a salary to work for them. And I know I heard one say just that, and he's become immensely
wealthy himself working for Mr. Stone, he said if I
didn't make money out of working for him I'd pay him if I
had to it'd be just for an association with him. And Mr. Stone's not different
from you or me or anybody else except to these metal
attitude toward people, toward himself, he makes
it his business to go the extra mile sometimes people
take advantage of that, don't act fairly with him,
I've seen that happen too. He doesn't worry about that too much, in fact he doesn't worry
about anything at all period. Because he's learned to adjust
himself to life in such a way that he gets great joy out of living, it's great joy other people. Or you may write a letter
to some acquaintances offering him encouragement. In your job you may do a
little more than you're paid to do, stay a
little longer on the job, make some other person
a little more happy. Thank you very much. (applause) I wanna introduce you to
the most wonderful person in the world, that's the
person sitting in your seat right now, and when you
come in to break down that person point by point, well in accordance with these
25 factors that go to make a queasy personality you'll
find out just exactly where you're wonderful and why, and I'm going to ask you as I go along, grade yourself, the rating that
you think you're entitled to and it can be anything from zero to 100%, then when you get through
add up the total and divide it by the twenty five traits
and that will give your average rating on the pleasing personality, and if you rate all the way
through a general rating of 50% you're doing very fine. Some of you rate much
higher than that I hope. Now the first trait of a
pleasing personality always is a positive mental attitude
because nobody wants to be around the person who's negative
and no matter what other traits you may have, if you don't have a positive
mental attitude at least when you're in the presence of
people you're not going to be considered to have
a pleasing personality. Now rate yourself on that
anywhere from zero to 100, if you can rate 100 on that you
will be up in the class with Franklin D. Roosevelt, that's pretty high. And the next rule is on flexibility, what do I mean by flexibility? I mean the ability to
learn to adjust yourself to the varying circumstances of life without going down under them. You know there are a lot of
people this world who are so stayed in their habits
and their mental attitude that they cannot adjust to
anything that's unpleasant, or anything that they don't agree with. Do you know why Franklin D.
Roosevelt was one of the most if not the most popular
president we've had in our generation? Because he could be all
things to all people. I have been in his office
when senators and congressmen would come in there ready to
cut his throat and they go out singing his praises. Just because of the metal
attitude and which he received, in other words he adjusted
himself to their mental attitude and he didn't get mad at the
same time the other fella did, that's a mighty good way
of adjusting to himself, learn to be flexible enough
not to get mad when the other fellow is mad. You wanna get mad do
it on your own account, when the other fella is in the good humor and you'll have a much better
chance of not getting hurt. Flexibility, I've seen presidents of the
United States come and go, I've been associated with several of them, and I know what this said
flexibility can mean in the highest office in the world. Herbert Hoover probably
was one of the best business executives,
based all round executives who have ever had in the White House, and yet he couldn't possibly
sell himself to the people a second time because he was inflexible, he could not bend, he was
too static, too fixed. Calvin Coolidge was the same way, and Woodrow Wilson to some
extent was the same way, he was too austere, too
static, too fixed, too correct, in other words he wouldn't
allow anybody to slap him on the shoulder call him Woody, or
take any personal liberties with him at all. There's so many things in this
life that you have to adjust yourself to temporarily
if you're going to have peace of mind and good health, that you might just as well
start now learning to do it, and if you're not flexible
you can become flexible. Number three, on the
pleasing tone of voice. Now that is any important things that you can experiment with. A lot of people have
harsh tones they talk, they have nasal tones, and they put that something
into the tone of voice that irritates other people. You take any monotonous
speaker for instance, does not have personal magnetism, does not know how to give
pitching tone to his voice, and he'll never get his
audience in a million years if he tried. You've got to learn to,
if you're going to teach, if you're going to lecture,
if you're going to any public speaking or even good conversation, you've got to learn to give
a pleasant pleasing tone than your tone of voice. If you can't do that now, you can do it by a little bit of practice, oftentimes by simply lowering your voice, not talking too loudly, you
can give it that something that is pleasing to the ear. I don't think that anybody can
teach another person how to make his tone of voice pleasing, I think you have to do that yourself, you have to do it by experimenting, but first of all before you do
it you have to feel pleasing. How could you use a pleasure tone of voice when you felt angry for instance. Or when you didn't like the
person that you were talking to how could you do it? Well you can, it's not too
effective unless you really feel inside of either way
you're expressing yourself. Well now all those are things
they're carefully studied techniques that you have to
acquire if you're going to make yourself pleasing and
consequently there I don't know if anything will pay off
better than the be pleasing in the eyes of other people. It's just one of those things that you can't get along without. Tolerance, now what does that mean? You know a lot of people don't
understand the full meaning of tolerance, that means an
open mind on all subjects, toward all people at
all times, an open mind. Now if I read your minds not
closed against anybody or anything you're always
willing to hear the last word, or to hear additional word about anything. Now you'll be surprised at
how few people there are in this world with open minds, some of them are close
to that you couldn't open them with a crowbar, you couldn't get a new
idea in there if you tried. Did you ever see one of
those people who is pleasing, you never did and you never will. Have a pleasant pleasing mental attitude, you've got to have an open
mind because the very minute people find that you have
prejudices that involve them and their understanding of
religion or politics or economics or anything else, the very
minute they find out that you have have a closed mind or any
of these things that affect them, they're going to back away from you. Do you have any idea why it
is that I can have all of the religion followers of all
religions in my classes and get along well with all of them, Catholics and Protestants,
Jews and Gentiles, all the races, all the creeps, do you know why it is? - [Student] 'Cause you love them all. - [Napoleon] That's right, that's right. To me they're all of one brand, they're my fellow beings,
are my brothers and sisters, that's why I get along with them. I never think of anybody in
terms of what he believes politically or religiously
or economically, I think of him in terms
of what he's trying to do to better himself and
to better somebody else. That's the term that
I think of people even that's why I get along so well. I didn't used to do that, an open mind, what a marvelous thing it is
to be able to be in possession of you so you can keep your mind open, and if you don't keep it open,
you're not going to learn very much if you have a closed
mind you'll find that you you'll miss out on a lot of information, a lot of facts that you
need that you couldn't get without an open mind. And then something it does to you inside to have your mind closed up
against anybody or anything, see that you have the last word, you don't want any more information. That means you've ceased to grow, the very moment you close
your mind on any subject, you say that's the last word
I want no more information and then you cease to grow. A keen sense of humor. What I mean by keen sense of
humor is you have to have a disposition, if you don't have
it you have to cultivate it, so that you can adjust yourself
to all these unpleasant things that come along in life without taking them too seriously. I think I told you about the motto that I saw in the office of Dr. Franklin once, he impressed me very much and
especially finding it in the office of a preacher, it said, don't take yourself too damn seriously. (laughs) And he explained to me
what that word damn mean, he said just exactly what it said. If you take yourself too
seriously you're damning yourself that's obvious isn't it. So it wasn't a profane word after all. And I like it, I like it, I still like it. I think it's a good motto for anybody, not to take himself too seriously. And incidentally one of the
finest tonics that you can take is to have a good laugh at
least several times a day, a good part of that. If you don't have anything laugh at, cook up something, look at
yourself in a glass for instance. (students laughing) You'll always get a laugh out of that, and you'd be surprised at how
to change the chemistry of your mind right while you're doing it. If you've got troubles they'll melt away and they won't seem nearly
as big when you're laughing as when you're crying. Keen sense of humor, what
a marvelous thing it is. I don't know that my sense of
humor is what you call keen, but it's alert, I can get
some fun out of almost any circumstance in life. I used to get a lot of punishment
over some circumstances that I now get fun out of
because I have oiled up and made my sense of humor
a little bit more alert than it used to be. Then next the frankness
of manner and speech. With discriminative control
of the tongue at all times based upon the habit of
thinking before you speak. Now most people don't do that, they speak first and think
or regret afterwards. What I want everything it
is in your conversation for instance if you just
before you utter any kind of an expression for anybody figure
out whether it's going to benefit the person that's
listening or damaging. Whether it's going to
benefit you or damage you, and if you just follow those
two simple rules I would say that half of the things that
you say that you wish you hadn't said you will never say them. If you do a little weighing and
a little thinking before you open your mouth and start speaking. A lot of people who zip
their mouths going and go off and leave them, they forget
what they said because they weren't there, and they're
almost always in difficulty with somebody. Right niche of manner in speech, now that doesn't mean that
you have to tell everybody exactly what you think
of because if you do that you have no friends. But frankly it's not being evasive, not engaging in double-talk, nobody likes a double talker, nobody likes a person
who's always evasive and never expressed an opinion about anything. And then number seven, pleasing facial expression. You know if you study your
facial expression in the marriage, it's a
marvelous thing to see how much more pleasing you can
make your facial expression when you try than when you don't try. By smiling a little bit, it's a marvelous thing to learn
to smile when you're talking to people, you'll be surprised
at how much more effective what you say is when you're
smiling and than when you're frowning or when you're looking serious. That makes a tremendous difference on the person that's listening. I hate to talk to a person
who's got a serious expression on as if the whole world
is all his shoulders, it makes me fidgety. I just wish that whatever
he's saying he'd get through with it and go on, but
if he limbers up like Franklin D. Roosevelt used
to and gives you a little million-dollar smile, even
the most trivial thing that he says sounds like music,
sounds like wisdom, because what he does
to you psychologically, that smile is a marvelous thing. Don't agree with people
when you don't mean it, because monkeys can agree. (students laughing) That's probably in my notes. But learn to smile because you feel it, where does a smile take place first, on your lips, your face, or where? - [Students] Heart. - [Napoleon] In your heart,
where are you feel it, that's where it takes place. You don't have to be pretty,
you don't have to be handsome, you don't have, but a
smile it'll decorate you and embellish you no matter who you are, make your facial expression
much more beautiful. And then the keen sense of
justice toward all people. Now a keen sense of justice, in other words being
just with another person even when it's to your
disadvantage to do so. What a wonderful thing that is
and how that does endear you to other people and they know very well that you're being just with them is costing you something, do it. There's no particular virtue
in being just with the other fellow when you're benefiting by it. And you know how, do have any
idea how many people there are that are just fair and
just honest only when the know it's gonna come back
to them in one way or another, how quickly they'd be
dishonest if it is profitable to them to do it? Well I wouldn't give you the percentage, I'd hate to tell you what I think it is, it's much too high,
people who are like that. Keen sense of justice toward
all people at all times. And then next one, sincerity of purpose. Nobody likes a person who
is obviously insincere in what he says and does. Who is trying to be
something that he's not, who say something that
doesn't represent these inner thoughts and you know that's true. It's not as bad as I'm
out lying but it's there it's the first cousin to it
lacking of sincerity of purpose. Then versatility. A wide range of knowledge of
people and the world events outside of one's immediate personal image, do you think a person who
doesn't know anything about except about one thing and
you'll find a person that's being boresome the moment
he gets out of that field. Now you don't have to use
your imagination very much to think of somebody that you know of, that he's got his nose so
closely the grindstone in someone things that he knows nothing
about anything is going on outside of that, and he'll
not be interesting as a conversationalist nor in
any other way unless he has a wide enough a range of
things generally to be able to talk to you about the
things that interest you. You know the best way in the world to make yourself liked by other people? - [ Students] Talk (indistinct) - [Napoleon] Talk to them
about the things that interests them, that's it, and incidentally, if you talk to the other
fellow about things that interest him when they get
around to talking about things that interest you he'll
be a receptive listener, much more so. And then tactfulness in speech and manner. Now you don't have to, in your
speech and in your manner, you don't have to reflect
by your mental attitude, by your words everything
goes on in your mind, if you do that why everybody
you'll be an open book and everybody can read you and will, and sometimes they'll read
you when you wish they hadn't. Tactfulness in your speech
and in your attitude toward other people. You can always be tactful, you know like drivers on the road when the
other fellow skinned your fenders and you know how tactful
they are when they jump out and run around to see
how much damage is done, maybe $0.10 where the
paint's been knocked off and they do $100 worth of
damage cussing one another out. Know some these days I'm
going to have an experience of seeing two fellows collide on the highway, and they're gonna jump out and apologize, each one claiming it wasn't
his fault and one will pay the bill when I do, I don't
know what's gonna happen to them, but I'm gonna see
that some of these days. (students laughing) Tactfulness. You'll be surprised how
much you can do with people if you're just tactful with them. Oftentimes instead of telling
people to do things or asking them do things,
requesting them to do things, or demanding them to do things, it might be very tactful
and helpful if you requested them and ask them if
they would mind doing things. Even though you're an authority
to give them an instruction it's still better to
ask if they would mind doing certain things. One of the most outstanding
employers I ever knew, never gave any of his
employees direct instructions, that was Andrew Carnegie, he always asked his
associates and his employees, even humblest if they would
mind doing something for him, or would it be convenient,
or would it be suitable, never ordered them to do anything, asked them always. No wonder he got along
so well with people, no wonder he was so successful. Then the promptness of decision. Nobody can be very well-liked
and have a very pleasing personality who always
puts off making a decision when he has all of the facts before him in order to make the
decision right on the spot. I don't mean but that they
should go off half-cocked, you should render snap judgments
but when they have all of the facts and the time
has arrived for a decision get in the habit of making
those decisions and if you make one that's wrong, you
can always reverse it, and don't be too big or too
little to reverse yourself when you find out that you
should reverse yourself. There's a great advantage
in being fair enough with yourself and with the other fellow to reverse yourself if you've
made the wrong decision. And of course I don't need to
make much comment on number thirteen, faith and infinite intelligence you know what's your base thing is there, you should rate very high. If you are following your
religion whatever it is faithfully you should rate
very high on that one. But you'd be surprised how
many people are to give lip service to this
question of faith and the infinite intelligence and
don't do very much about it outside of lip service. And this lip service is
not it's not so loud that you could hear it very far away, they don't indulge them
in very outstanding acts, backing up their alleged belief
in infinite intelligence. I don't know how to create a fuse above but you know I believe that
one act an ounce of act is worth a million tons
of good intentions. I belief just one act. (upbeat music) Number 14, appropriateness of words, is it free from slang and
why is cracks and profanity. I never saw an age when the
people indulge in so many wisecracks slang statements, double-talk and all that
sort of thing is now, and it may seem smart to
the fellow who's doing it but it's not smart to the
fellow who's listening. He may laugh at it but
he's not gonna be impressed with the fella that engages
too much in these wisecracks. My saying, appropriateness in words, our English language is not
the easiest thing in the world to conquer, to master but
it is a beautiful language, it has a wide range of words meanings, and it's a wonderful thing to
be able to control the English language so that you can convey
to the other fella precisely what you have in your mind
or what you want him to think you have in mind, what
you want him to know. Then the control
enthusiasm you'd say well, why control enthusiasm
why not turn it loose and let it run riot well,
that's because you'll get in danger in trouble if you do. Your enthusiasm ought to be
handled very much like you handle your electricity now
it's a very wonderful thing it washes dishes, washes your
clothes, runs the toaster, maybe cooks your food on the stove, does a lot of things but
you handle it with care and you turn it on when you
want it and then turn it off when you don't want it. Your enthusiasm should be
handled with just as much care, you turn it on when you want to, turn it on then you can
just as quickly turn it off. If you're not able to
turn it off as quickly as you turn it on, somebody
will come along get you all enthused over something that you ought not to be enthused over. Did you ever hear that happening? And boy, what a sucker
you will be at that time for his prey whatever he wants to do. You can be too enthusiastic
of the other fella where you wear him out, wear him out
pulling down his metal shades and resisting you. I have had salesmen come
around so enthusiastic that I wouldn't let him in mp
place a second time, because I didn't wanna go to the trouble of defending myself against him. I have heard some speakers,
I've heard some preachers like that too. I wouldn't wanna follow them because I had too much trouble resisting them. I don't get any notions. You know the type I'm talking about, the fellow just absolutely
turns his enthusiasm battery loose and goes off and leaves it, and you all you can do is
run away from it or try and turn it off, and no matter
what he does that's not going to be popular but the man who
can turn on his enthusiasm at the right time, the right amount, and then turn it off at the right time, that's the man that's going
to be considered to have a pleasing personality and
incidentally if you're not able to to exude
enthusiasm when you want to you certainly are not gonna be
considered a pleasing personality because there are times
when you definitely need it, in teaching, or in lecturing,
in speaking or in ordinary conversation, or in sailing
or almost anything that you're doing in the human relationship
requires a certain amount of enthusiasm at times. And enthusiasm is one of those
things you can cultivate, it's just like all these other qualities, there's only one quality in
here that you can't cultivate. I'll see if you can find it. This was the moment Andrew
Carnegie said he could give every one of the others except that one. - [Student] Personal magnetism. - [Napoleon] Personal
magnetism that's right exactly. You've got just so much of that even that, that's subject to control
and to transmutation to. But that's something one
person can't give to another. Control enthusiasm then
good clean sportsmanship, being a sportsman about
everything that you're not gonna win all the time in
life, nobody can do that. There are gonna be times when you lose, when you lose lose
gracefully and graciously. Lose and say well, I lost but
either maybe it's the best thing that I did because I'm
gonna start looking immediately for that seed of an equivalent
benefit the next time one comes to lose, I'm gonna
let somebody else lose. I'm gonna wise myself up, and then don't take it too
seriously no matter what it is. You know during the Depression
I had four of my friends commit suicide, two of them
jumped off a tall building, one of them shot himself,
and another took poison, because they lost their money. The two of them at least I
lost twice as much as they did, and I didn't jump off in a building, I didn't shoot myself,
I didn't poison myself, what did I do? I said well it's a
blessed fine thing because losing this amount of money
now I'll have to start even earn some more, I've
been earning some more, I'll earn some more. There's my mental attitude toward, well stuff I started immediately
look if that's even cool but didn't disturb me the
least I said to myself, if I lose every penny that I have, my last suit I have even my my BVDs, I can always get a barrel from somebody, and starting all over again
wherever I get a bunch of people together to listen I'll be able to start making money. Now you can't how you gonna
down a person with that kind of an attitude, no matter how
many times they defeat you, you come right up again you're like a cork you putting
it under water buddy can bounce up the moment you
take your hand off of him, and if you don't take your hand off he'll make you take it off. And then this one down here
number 17, common courtesy. Oh what a marvelous thing
that is just kind of an ordinary garden variety of
courtesy told everybody. People especially toward
people that are obviously on a lower plane socially or
economically or financially than yourself, what a
wonderful thing it is to be courteous to the person
to whom you don't have to be courteous, it's a wonderful thing. It does something to the other fellow, it does something to you. I always hate to see anybody
lording it over another person nothing gets me upset quicker
than to go into a restaurant and have some newly
rich or somebody come in and start ordering the waiters
around and abusing them. Even sometimes they may deserve
it but I still I have never learned to like that. I've always thought that
anybody that would abuse another person in public with or without a cause, had something wrong with his machinery, and then something is missing in life, and you would be sure that
there is something he's missing. I remember so well when I
was living at the Belfry Stretford in hotel in Philadelphia, on that famous trip when I
went there to get my publisher the first time, one of the
waiters spilled some hot soup right on the back of my neck, and I mean it burned me too. Well the head waiter ran over
and little while the manager of the hotel was out there
and he want to get a doctor I said, well it's not that serious after all the waiter is still a little soup, if he hadn't spilled it
I've gone down my neck now maybe I have to take it. Well he said we'll have your
suit cleaned and we'll do this, we'll do that, I said no, don't get upset, I'm the one to get upset and
I'm not getting upset about it. And that waiter afterward he
was off-duty he came up to my room and he said I want to
tell you how much I appreciate what you said, you could've
had me fired because I was just as good as fired and if
you hadn't talked about the way he did I'd been out, and said I couldn't afford to be fired. Well I don't how much
good it did the waiter but it did me a lot of
good know that after all there was a man I could have humiliated. (applause) As far as I know, I have never
intentionally in my whole life humiliated anybody
for anything whatsoever, never as far as I know. I may have got it done intentionally, and I feel good to be able to say that, I feel good to have that
attitude toward people. And you know it comes back
to me because the people have that attitude toward me too. They don't wanna humiliate me. Why, because you get back
from people what you send out. You're a human magnet and
you're attracting to you the sum of the substance that goes on in your heart and soul. Then appropriateness
of personal adornment, and that's important to
anybody in the public life. I have never been too fussy about that, I've never used formal clothes
except on very few occasions. Our final cause is time
however when it's appropriate, perfectly appropriate for you to adjust but ordinarily you use
good taste and ordinary the best-dressed person is
the one that's dressed so that if you were told to describe how he or she was dressed later on you couldn't do it. You'd say all I know was he
looked nice or she looked nice. Properness adornment
then good showmanship. You've got to be a
showman if you're going to sell yourself in any walk of life. You've got to be able
to be a good showman, know when to dramatize words, when to dramatize circumstances, no other certain things if
you describe them in just ordinary language you take
the history of the most outstanding man or if you just
gave me bare facts and didn't dramatize it as you went along
wildly you'd fall down flat, you really would, you've got
to dramatize these things that you're talking about,
these people that you're doing business with, you've got to
learn the art of showmanship as you go along, and it's
something you can learn. And then I don't need to mention
to you that you should have the habit of going the extra
mile we've spent a whole evening on that and you've
got a whole lesson on that, and certainly you can
rate yourself on that. And then on temperance
and eating, drinking, work and playing and thinking. Temperance that means not too much not too little of anything. Do yourself just as much
damage with eating as you can with drinking liquor, just as much. The rule that I go by in all
all these things is that I don't allow anything take charge of me. When I was smoking, when I got
to the point where the cigars were smoking me then I quit. I can take a cocktail, I can take two, I guess I could take three, I don't remember ever
having taken more than that. Either socially but I
could if I ever found them taking me or if I ever found
my being able to resist them I'd part company with them in a hurry. I would say I've followed the
same rule if I were smoking again now, and when I got to
the point where they cigars were smoking me I did, I quit, quit right off. I wanna be in possession
when the inhale all the time, not too much not too little temperance. Temperance it's a marvelous thing. There's nothing so very
bad in life don't you know if you don't overdo it. Then the patience under
all circumstances patience, you have to have patience
in this word we're living, it's a world of competition, you're constantly being called
upon the use your patience and by using patience you learn
to time these things so that you get actually out of other
people that time works more when the time is more favorable, but if you don't have patience
you try to force the hand of other people you'll get a no
or you get a turn down or a knock down when you don't want it. Patience requires, you require
patience in order that you may tie in your relationships with people, and you have to have a lot of patience, you have to be able to
control yourself at all times. Most people don't have much
patience you know you can take the average person
take a majority of people, you can make them mad in two seconds. All you've got to do say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing. I don't need to be get angry
because somebody says or does the wrong thing, I could if I want to, but it's my choice I can
choose not to get mad. Number 23 gracefulness and
posture and carriage of the body. I came in here like this, of course I'd be very
comfortable that's much easier, but it's finer we'd stand up like this, look like I can stand straight
without leaning on anything. Slump around and be
careless in your posture, might be one who is not too
very particular about his own personal appearance and so forth, it's a good idea to have
gracefulness and posture and carriage of the body. And then put it for humility of the heart, based upon a keen sense of modesty. Humility of the heart I don't
know of anything as wonderful as have true humility of the heart. Because you know when I think
about criticizing anybody for anything now, and sometimes
there are times when I do have to criticize people,
sometimes I have to criticize the people I'm working with,
some of not all of them, but I'm always inside of me
maybe they don't hear the inside of you know when I
find it necessary for me to express disapproval of anything
anybody does I always say inside well God pity us all, and but for the grace of God
I'd be the man that I'm over there criticizing, and maybe
I've done things that 10 times as bad as the thing I'm
criticizing him for. In other words I try to
maintain that sense of humility in my heart regardless
of what happens to me that's unpleasant and
regardless of how successful, the more successful I
become the more I observe this feeling of humility of the heart. Recognizing it after all,
whatever success I have is due entirely to the friendly,
marvelous love and affection and cooperation of other people, because without that I could
never express myself over the world the way I have, I could
never have benefited the people that I have, could
never have grown the way I have grown had it not been for
the love and the affection and the marvelous friendly
cooperation of other people, and I couldn't have gotten
that cooperation if I hadn't adjusted myself to other people in the state of friendliness. Last but not least personal magnetism. That has reference to the
sexy motion of course. An inborn trait and the
only one of the traits of personality which cannot be cultivated, but it can be controlled and directed to beneficial usage. As a matter of fact, the most outstanding
leaders, salesmen, speakers, clergymen, lawyers, lecturers, teachers, most outstanding in every field
of endeavor as a matter of fact the people who have
learned to transmute sexy motion that is to say, convert that
great creative energy over into doing the thing that you wanna
do most at the time being. And that word transmute is
something to conjure with it's something to look up in
the dictionary to make sure you understand what it means. You've got a lot of
thinking to do about this and you're gonna make
discoveries about yourself, you're gonna find out that
when you really come down to answering these questions
and giving yourself a rating, that you have certain
weaknesses that you didn't know you had and if you have certain
strengths and certain good qualities that you
perhaps had undervalued. Let's find out about ourselves
to see just where we stand. What it is makes us
tick, why people like us, why people dislike us. And I could take any one of you, and sit down with you by
asking you I'll say not over 20 questions I could leave my
finger right on what's keeping you from being popular
if you are not popular, and you can do the same thing
that's what I want you to do. I want you to learn to analyze
people starting with yourself find out what it is it
makes people popular, what it makes them tick and
when you do that you have one of the greatest assets that
you could possibly imagine. Thank you very much. (applause) Well we're on a great lesson tonight, we're starting out with
personal initiative, and this is a great lesson
because it's the action producing portion of this philosophy. It wouldn't make very much
difference whether you understood all of the
other principles or not, if you didn't do something
about it, now would it. - [Students] No. - [Napoleon] In other words
the value that you're going to get out of this philosophy
will not consist of anything that I will say in these lectures, not consist of anything that
I put in my notes nor anything that's in your lessons or
anything is in any of my textbook that you'll be reading
that's important but the important thing is what you
will do about all of this. The action you will take to
start using this philosophy on your own personal initiative. Now there are certain things
that certain attributes of initiative and leadership
and I want you to start in and grade yourself on
them and there's 31 of them. I'm going to make comment on the ones that I consider of greatest importance. Incidentally this is a
grading of yourself all these qualities will be the
first step toward making those qualities your own. I don't believe that I need
to make much comment on number one, on a definite major purpose, because obviously if you don't
have an objective in life, a major overall purpose, you have very much personal initiative. And that's one of the most
important steps to take is to find out what it is
you want to do maybe if you if you're not sure what
you wanna do over a lifetime, let's find out what you're
going to do this year, the remainder of this year. Let's set our goal not too high perhaps, but and not too far in the distance. If you're in a business,
or a profession, or a job, you're definite major purpose
certainly could enable you to step up your income from your services whatever your services may be. And then at the end of the year, you can review your record
and re-establish your definite major purpose and step it up to something bigger maybe
to another one year plan, or maybe to a five year plan. But nevertheless that's
starting point for a personal relationship is to find
out where you're going and why you're going there, what you're going to do as you get there, and how much you're going to
get out of it financially. You know the majority of people
in this world could be very successful if they would just
make up their minds how much success they want and what terms they want to evaluate success. There are a lot of people in
this world who want a good position and plenty of
money but they're not quite sure just what kind of
a position or what kind of, how much money they want
or when they wanna get it. Let's do a little thinking
on that subject and grade ourselves on number one, then on number to an
adequate motive to inspire continuous action in pursuit
of the object of one's definite major purpose. Now study yourself carefully
and see if you have an adequate motive, or motives, it will be
very much better if you have more than one motive for
wanting to attain the object of your major purpose whatever
that happens to be, or your immediate purpose. Ladies and gentlemen nobody ever does anything without a motive. Well now let me restate that, let me restate that, that's not correct. No one outside of the insane
asylum or a person who is off balance may do a lot of
things without any motive whatsoever but normal
people move only on motive, and the stronger the motive
is the more active they become and the more apt they are to act upon their own personal initiative. You know you don't have to
have an awful lot of brains in this world, you don't have
to be very so very brilliant, you don't have to have such a
wonderful education in order to be an outstanding success
if you will only take what little you have, whether it's
little or much and start using it, putting it into operation
doing something about it and with it, and of course
that calls for initiative. And number three, a mastermind alliance, that is to say friendly
cooperation at least through which to acquire the necessary power for noteworthy achievement. Take the initiative now
and find out just how many friends you have that
you can count or call on if you were to need something
in the way of cooperation. Make a list of them, in your
notes make a list of the people that you really truly could
turn to if you needed some favor, if you needed an endorsement, if you needed an introduction, maybe if you needed to
make a loan of money. And incidentally unless you
have all the money lying around that you need them time might
come and you need to make a loan wouldn't be very nice to
know someone that you could turn to in the case you need, and get the money you need, of course you can always go to a bank, all you have to do is to
give a four-for-one security government bonds, and you can
get all the money you want. But there are times when you
want to medium sums perhaps, or you want other favors
comparable to the borrowing of money and you need to have somebody, the acquaintance of somebody
cultivated so that when you turn to them for favors you can get them. But above all, if you are
aiming at anything above mediocrity, you need to
have a mastermind alliance of one or more people beside yourself, who not only will cooperate
with you but who will go out of the way to help you and assist you, who have the ability to do
something that will be a benefit to you, and it's up to you to
take the initiative to build those mastermind allies you
know they don't just come along and join you because you're a good fellow, you have to lay out a plan
you have to have an objective, and you have to find the
people suitable to make up your mastermind alliance, and
then you have to give them an adequate motive for becoming
a mastermind ally of yours. Now incidentally I happen to
know that the vast majority of people do not have a mastermind
alliance with other people. And don't be afraid to
grade yourself to zero on this one if you don't
have one but next time you come to grade don't grade
zero, grade higher than that. And the only way you can grade
higher if your grade zero now, is to start in and find
at least one mastermind ally that you can attach yourself
to right now in the beginning. Number four, self-reliance in
proportion to the nature of your major purpose. Find out just exactly how
much self-reliance you have. Incidentally when you
come to check yourself on self-reliance you may need
some help from other people. May need some help from
your wife or your husband, or your closest friend or
somebody who knows you real well. You may think you had self-reliance, but do you know how you
can tell about how much self-reliance you have, would
you be interested in knowing how you can check that very accurately? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] All right go
back up there to number one and carefully evaluate your
definite major purpose, and see just how big that is. Or if you have a definite
major purpose if you don't have one or if it's not outstanding
and above anything that you've attained up to the present, then you don't have very much
self-reliance and you should rate very low on that. If you have the proper
amount of self-reliance, you step you're definite
major purpose up or way beyond anything you have ever achieved before and you'll become determined to attain it. Number five, self-discipline
sufficient to ensure mastery of the head and the heart and to
sustain one's motives until they are realized. Where and when do you
need self-discipline most do you think? When you're on the way up
and when everything is rosy, and is going well and you're succeeding? Is that when you need it? - [Students] No. - [Napoleon] I thought
you'd call me on that one. That's right, you need
self-discipline when things are, when the going is hard, when
the outlook is not favorable. What kind of self discipline
do you need at that point? You need discipline over your
mind to the extent that you know where you're going
you know that you have a right to go there, and you know
that you're determined to go there regardless of how
hard the going may be, or how much opposition you may meet with, and you'll need at least enough
self-discipline to sustain you through the period
when the going is hard instead of quitting or complaining. And number six, persistence
based on the will to win. Do you know how many times
the average person has to fail before he quits or decides he
wants to do something else? - [Students] One. - [Napoleon] Once, if you
think you're generous. (students laughing) Once. Did you ever hear the fellow
who fails before he starts because he knows that there's
no use of starting because he knows he can't do a thing. Did you ever hear him. Well that cuts it down below one, you see. And would you be interested
in knowing that the vast majority of people fail before they start, they actually never make a start, they think of things that they might do but they never do anything about it. And did you know also that
a vast majority of the people even though they do
start at the first opposition they quit or allow
themselves to be diverted over to something else. I wonder just occurs to
me to ask a question, I wonder if you who have
been here close to me, and where we have taken our
hair down talking frankly, I wonder if you know
what my outstanding asset happens to be. - [Female Student] Never give up. - [Male Student] Will to win. - [Napoleon] Will to win. Well, yeah you're getting hot. I have resistance and the will to win, and also the self-discipline
with which to stick to a thing the heart all harder
when the going is hard. Now that is my outstanding
quality always has been, it always will be. And I wanna tell you without those traits, I never would have
completed this philosophy, I never would have been
able to have it introduced as widely as it has been, and I wouldn't be standing
here talking to you tonight. And what about that
trait, is that something you're born with or is it
something that you can acquire? - [Students] Acquire. - [Napoleon] Well if you couldn't
acquire there'd be no use of talking about this lesson would there? Certainly you can acquire it, and it's not very difficult affair. What is it that causes the person to be persistent by the way. - [Student] Motive. - [Napoleon] Yes motive. Burning desire, do you know
what a burning desire is? Burning desire are back
of a motive is what makes people persistent isn't it. A burning desire back of a motive. I never think of persistence
and the burning desire that I don't think of my courtships. I remember that I put more
persistence and more burning desire back of my courtship
than anything else that I ever went into in my life. And I want to tell you without
that I don't think you get very far in a courtship. Well don't you think you could
transmute that emotion over to something else putting
it back of your business, or your profession or your job, and have just as much
emotional feeling about the painting success in your job
as you could about selling yourself to the one of your choice, don't you think you can do that? You know what that word
transmute means by the way, do you? What does it mean? (muffled speech) Fine, fine, marvelous. Have you ever tried it
on anything or anybody? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] Marvelous, marvelous. If you haven't tried it, start trying it. Next time you feel moody or discouraged, try to change that over into
an emotion of courage and faith you see what a marvelous
thing happens to you, you change the whole
chemistry of the whole brain, and your whole body, and you'll be much more effective. And number seven is a
well-developed faculty of the imagination controlled and directed. Do you think those last
words are important? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] Yes, an imagination
not controlled and directed might be very dangerous. I once made a survey made an
analysis of all of the men in the federal penitentiary
of the United States, I did that for the Department of Justice, and you'll be interested in
knowing that the majority of the men in the penitentiary were
there because they had too much imagination but was not
controlled and directed in a constructive direction. Now, imagination is a marvelous
thing but if you don't have it under control and
if you don't direct it to definite ends, constructive ends, it may be very dangerous to you. And number eight, the habit of forming definite and prompt decisions. By the way do you do that? Do you form definite and prompt
decisions when you have all the facts in hand with
which to make decisions? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] Well I think some of you are just a little bit too modest. Well seriously friends, if
you do not have the habit of making decisions promptly and
definitely clear-cut decisions when all of the facts are in, your loafing on the job,
you're procrastinating, and you're destroying this
very vital thing called personal initiative. One of the finest two places
the to start practicing personal initiative is to
learn to make decisions firmly and definitely and quickly, when once you have all
of the facts available. Now I'm not talking about snap judgments, I'm not talking about the
opinions or snap judgments based upon half-baked evidence, I'm talking about facts, all of the facts on a given subject which are
not in your hands and available you should then do
something with those facts, you should make up your mind
exactly what you're going to do and not dilly-dally around
like so many people do, because if you do that first
thing you know you would be in the habit of dilly-dallying
around in connection with everything, in other words
you'll not be a person who acts upon his own personal initiative. And number- - [Students] Nine. (students laughing) - [Napoleon] The habit of
basing opinions on facts instead of relying on guesswork. How many of you do that? How many of you rely upon the
facts instead of guess work? Well, pretty truthful bunch I think. I wonder if you do, I wonder
if you recognize how many times you're acting on guesswork
in comparison of the number of times you're acting upon facts in forming your opinions. I wonder if you recognize
the importance of making it your business to get at facts before you form an opinion about anything. Did you know that you have
no right to an opinion about anything at any time anywhere, unless it's based upon facts or what you believe to be facts. Did you know that? And why is that true? Would you tell me why you
don't have a right to do that? (muffled speech) Because you don't wanna get into trouble, you don't wanna fail that's why. Of course you can go ahead and
have opinions and we all do a bunch, a flock of them. You can even give them to
somebody else without them asking for them, we do that right along. But before you really and
truly can safely express an opinion or have one, you
must do a certain amount of research and base your opinion upon facts or what you believe to be facts. Now we'll come down to this
enthusiasm one number 10. The capacity to generate
enthusiasm at will and control. Do you know how to generate
enthusiasm and will? - [Students] Action, doing, conviction. - [Napoleon] What's back of all this. What happens before you
start doing anything in connection with enthusiasm? (muffled speech) Yes, you have to feel it don't you, you have to feel the emotion of it, you have to be quickened and
your mind has to be alerted with some definite objective
or purpose or motive, and then you do something
about that motive. You do it with words, with
the expression of your face, or by some other form of action. That word action is
inseparable from other the word enthusiasm, you can't separate the two. Now there are two kinds of enthusiasm, there's passive enthusiasm
with enthusiasm which you feel but you give no expression
of it whatsoever. And there are times
when you need that kind, believe you me, because if
you don't have that kind you disclose to other people
what goes on in your mind at times when you don't
want that to happen. You take a great leader,
a great executive, and while he may have a
tremendous amount of enthusiasm, he'll display that enthusiasm
all night to whom he so ever he pleases no matter whatsoever
circumstances he pleases. He will not just turn it
all and go off and leave it, that's the way you and I do it, or do we? That's the way the majority of people do, when they have enthusiasm they
just turn it on and blubber over at it, and they accomplish nothing. Controlled enthusiasm,
enthusiasm turned on at the right time and then turned off at
the right time is an important thing and your initiative
is the only thing that can control that. You know if you took
that one subject alone, the question of how to turn
on an and off enthusiasm, and got the art down fine, you could become a marvelous salesman of anything you might want to sell. Did you know that? You really could. Did you ever hear of anybody
selling anything that didn't feel enthusiasm of what
he's trying to sell, did you? Did did you ever sell anything
that you didn't have that feeling of enthusiasm over
what you were trying to do for the other fellow? You may have thought
you did but you didn't, if you didn't have that feeling
of enthusiasm and on your own initiative then
you didn't make a sale. Somebody may have bought
something from me because he needed it and had to have it
but you had very little to do it, unless you have that feeling
that you imparted to him, and how do you impact
a feeling of enthusiasm to another person? How do you do that when
you're selling principles? (muffled speech) Must be sold on it yourself, that's a very good way of putting it. In other words it starts
inside of your own emotional makeup, you must feel that way. If you open your mouth to speak, you must speak with enthusiasm. You must put some enthusiasm
into your an expression of your face, put on a
smile, a good broad one, because nobody speaks with
enthusiasm with a frown on his face, the two just
don't go together do they? No they don't. So there're a lot of things
that you must learn about this business of expressing
enthusiasm if you're going to make the most of it and all
of them involve your personal initiative, you've got to do
it nobody can do it for you. I can't tell you how to be enthusiastic, I can tell you what are the
component parts of enthusiasm, how to express it but after
all the job of actually expressing it is up to you. Let's pass on down to
number 12 of tolerance, and you know what tolerance, what is it? - [Student] Open mind. - [Napoleon] Open mind on what? (muffled speech) How many of you are
open-minded on everything? Come on (laughs) You really think you are? (laughs) I hate to tell you how far
off you are on that one, 'cause you're friends of mine
I wanna keep it that way. Open-minded on all subjects,
I'll admit that I'm not. I'm not open-minded on all subject. I'm open-minded on a lot of
subjects the ones I want to be open-minded on, but we shouldn't, we shouldn't have any attitude
toward anybody under any circumstances unless it's
based upon something to justify that attitude or what we
believe to justify at least. Do you have any idea how much
value you deprive yourself of all the way through life just
because you closed your mind against somebody you don't like
whether that person might be the most beneficial person in the world, if you all had an open mind toward him. Did you know that one of the
one of the costless things in an industrial or a business
organization is the closed minds of the people at work, did you know that? If you don't know that I
want you to find it out. It's the most costly thing and
any business organization or any industries, the closed
minds of the people who work there, close toward one another,
close toward opportunities, close towards the people they serve, and close toward themselves. When you speak of intolerance
you often think of somebody who doesn't like the other fellow because of his religion or his politics, well that doesn't scratch the
surface of the real meaning of this subject of intolerance. It extends to almost
every human relationship, and unless you do maintain
form the habit of maintaining an open mind on all
subjects, toward all people, at all times, you'll
never be a great thinker, you'll ever have a great
magnetic personality, and you certainly will
never be very well liked, unless you do have an open mind. Did you know that you can be
very frank with people whom you don't like and who do not like you, if they know that you're
sincere and that you're speaking with an open mind, did you know that? The one thing that
people will not tolerate, is to recognize that they're
talking to somebody whose mind is already closed and what
they're saying has no effect whatsoever regardless of
how much value there is to, it or how much truth there is to it. And there are a lot of people
in this world whose minds are so definitely closed on so
many things that you couldn't crack the mind with a sledgehammer
and you couldn't get an ounce of truth in there
if you lived 100 years. They are just closed up tight, sealed, hermetically sealed. Number 13, the habit of doing
more than you're paid for always, how am I to do that? Let me have your hands. What's the matter with the ones who don't? Is there anything wrong with this habit? Oh that word always (laughs) Alright let's leave it out. How many of you follow the habit
of rendering more services, better service than you're paid to render? Part of the time, part of the time. That's more like it, that's more like it. That's something in connection
with which you certainly have to move on your personal initiative, nobody's gonna tell you to do that, nobody's going to expect you to do that, that's something that's entirely within your own prerogative. But incidentally it's probably
one of the most important, and one of the most profitable
sources through which you can exercise your own personal initiative. If I had to pick out the
time and the place and the circumstance under which you
could make use it for your personal initiative most
beneficial undoubtedly, it would be in connection
with your following the habit of rendering more service
and better service than you're paid to render
because you don't have to ask anybody for the promotion doing that, and also if you do follow that habit, not just do it once in a
while that's not so very effective, but follow the habit, sooner or later the law of
increasing returns begins to pile up the dividends for you
and when the dividends come back they come back greatly multiplied. I wanna tell you when you start
living by this principle to going the extra mile you can
expect unusual things to happen to you, and they'll all be
pleasant, every one of them. (upbeat music) And number 14, tactfulness
and a keen sense of diplomacy. How many of you have tactfulness
and the keen sense of diplomacy, let me see
your hands on that one. (laughs) That's pretty good. That is really good. Well, now let's say maybe
that definition is little too broad, how many of you are
tactful in your conversations with people, just on their
conversations, tactful. That's pretty good. What do you think about this
business of being tactful, is it worth the time it takes
to be tactful you think> - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] You think it is. Why? - [Students] It never hurt anyone. - [Napoleon] That's right,
now you're getting at you, get the cooperation of others
more easily if you're tactful. You come in and tell me that
I've got to do something and I say well, I may not just a minute, just a minute maybe I do
have to do something good if you put to me that way
I'm going to send some resistance right away. But if you come in and say to me, I would very greatly appreciate
it if you would do something what you knew well in the first
place that you had a right to demand on it but you
didn't put it that way. One of the most impressive
things that I learned from Andrew Carnegie, at the very
beginning of my association with him was that he
never commanded anybody to do anything, never. No matter who the man was that
he requested to do something he never asked, he never commanded him, he always asked him if he
would do a certain thing. Would you please do a certain thing, or will you do the other thing. And it's surprising the amount
of loyalty that Mr. Carnegie had from his men, they'd go out
of their way for him anytime of the day or night because
of his tactics in dealing with them and when it was necessary
for him to discipline one of them, he usually invited him
all to the house gave him a nice steak dinner real
five or six course dinner, really put on the dog and then
after dinner they shoot out came when they went over the library, and he started asking questions. One of his chief secretary
was scheduled to become a member of his mastermind group, and this boy found out that
he was scheduled for promotion and went to his head and
he commenced to run around with a bunch of high
binders in Pittsburgh, people who threw cocktail
parties and such, and just in a little while he
was taking too much liquor, staying out too late, his
eyes were hanging out on his cheeks when he'd come into the
morning and Mr. Carnegie let this go on for about three months, and he got invited out
on the evening to dinner, and after dinner was over,
they went into the library Mr. Carnegie said now, I'm
sitting over there in your chair and you're sitting over here in my chair, I wanna know what you would
do if you were in my place, and you had a man scheduled
for an important promotion and all of a sudden it seemed
to have gone to his head, started running around with fast company, staying up late at night,
drinking too much liquor, paying too much attention to
everything except his apartment where would you do in
the case of that kind, I'm anxious to know. This young man said, Mr.
Carnegie I know you're going to fire me so you might just as well start and get it over with. Mr. Carnegie said, oh no, oh no, if I'd want to fire you I
wouldn't have given you a nice dinner and I wouldn't have
brought you up in my house, so I could done that down the office. No I'm not gonna fire you, I'm just gonna have you ask
yourself a question and see whether or not you're
not about in the position to fire yourself, maybe you are, maybe you're closer to
it than you realize. That man right about this did
become one of Mr. Carnegie's mastermind group and did
become a millionaire later on, it absolutely saved him from himself. Mr. Carnegie's tactfulness
was out of this world. He knew how to handle men,
he knew how to get them to examine themselves, it
doesn't do much good for me to examine you, but it might
do a lot of good if you examined yourself in
connection with your faults, and in connection with your virtues. Self analysis is one of
the most important forms of personal nature that
you can possibly engage in. Self analysis, I never let a
day go by that I don't examine myself to see where I have fallen down, where I'm weak, where I
can make improvements, what I can do to render more
service and better service. I examine myself every day, and believe you me this has
been going on for a great number of years, and even today
I can always find some place where I can improve ,where
I can do something better, or something more, it's
a very healthy form of personal initiative. And it's very interesting too, because you finally get
down to where you'll be honest with yourself. Do you have any idea how
many people are who dishonest with themselves, it's the
worst form of dishonesty that I know anything about at all. Creating alibis in your own
mind to support your acts and your deeds and your thoughts, instead of examining yourself
and finding out where you're weak and then bridging those weaknesses, or getting somebody in
your mastermind alliance to bridge them for you. Now that's just personal initiative too, and it's the kind of personal
initiative that most people won't engage in because it involves the self analysis and self-criticism, but which would you rather have? Would you rather have an
outsider criticize you and point out your culture
would you rather criticize yourself and find them? (muffled speech) Why? (muffled speech) Well, you can be kind of
confidential about it, you don't have to publicize
these weaknesses that you find out and you can get them corrected
before anybody else finds out about them if you do do a good job, but if you wait until somebody
else has to call them to your attention then they become
public property don't they, and they may embarrass you,
they may hurt your pride, they may even cause you to
build up an inferiority complex if you wait for the other
fellows they have to point out your weaknesses to you. That's personal initiative too, finding out what your weak spots are, what it is that caused you to
be disliked by other people, why it is you're not getting
ahead as well as some of the other people and where
you know you've got just as much brains or even more than they have. Another marvelous place to
take the personal initiative is to compare yourself with other people who are succeeding beyond your success. Make comparisons and analysis
to see what it is they have that you don't have. You'll be surprised to find
out how much you can learn from the other fella maybe that
the fellow you don't like very well either you can
learn something from him. If he's ahead of you he's
doing better than you are, believe you me you can always
learn something from the man who is doing better than you are doing. Sometimes you can learn something
from the fellow who's not doing as well as you're doing too, it works both ways. You may find out why
he's not doing as well. Number 15, the habit of listening much and talking only unnecessary. I wonder how many of you
listen more than we talk, would you give me your hands. And I never yet heard of
anybody learning anything while he's talking, except
that maybe he might learn to not talk so much. This seems kind of funny
but it's not funny, it's very serious. The vast majority of people
do a lot more talking than they do listening, and
they seem dead bit on getting the other fella told off
instead of listening to see what the other fella has to say
that they might profit by. Listening much and talking when necessary. Think first and talk last. And 16, a well-developed sense
of observation of details. How many of you feel that
you have a keen sense of observation of details. How many of you feel
that you could walk down State Street here or any of
these streets in front of marshall fields, just casually
walk by and then after you got at the end of the
block give a very accurate description of everything
you saw on the window. Do you think you can do that? I once belonged to a class
in Philadelphia directed by a man who was teaching us the
importance of observation of small details because he said
it was a little details that make up the successes
and the failures of life, not the big ones at all the little ones, the ones we usually pass
society's not being important or that we do leave them observe, and as a part of our training
he took us out of the hall, took us down the street one block, crossed over the street came
up one block and back into the hall and in doing so we passed
about 10 stores one of which was a hardware store, and in
that hardware store window, I would say there was easily 500 antics. And he asked each of us to take
a pad of paper and a pencil alone, now mind you giving
us just a for our memory, and to put down the things that
we saw as we passed along we thought were important. And guess how many was the
greatest number of things that any of us put down going two blocks, one block down this way
crossing up the other side, and covering at least 20 stores. Guess how many was the
greatest number of things that any of us saw. (muffled speech) You'll be surprised. The greatest number of things
that anybody had down was 56. And when this man came back, he didn't have any paper, nor pencil, he listed 746, described each one of
them and told what window it was in and what part
of the window was in. I didn't accept it, I had to
go down when the class was over and double backtrack it and checked it, and he was absolutely 100% accurate. In other words he had trained
himself to observe details not just a few of them but all of them. And believe you me a good executive, a good leader, a good anything, is a person who observed
all the things that are happening around him, the good
things and the bad things, the positives and the negatives. He just doesn't happen to notice
those things that interest him, he notices everything
that may interest him, or may affect his interest. Attention to details. Number 18, the capacity to stop
criticism without resentment how many of you can do that? Come on give me your hands. Now I'm going to test you another way. How many of you invite criticism
that is friendly criticism from other people how
many of you invite it? You're overlooking a bit
there my friends those of you who didn't vote
you're overlooking a big bit, 'cause they're one of the
finest things that could possibly happen is to
have a regular source, a friendly criticism of the
thing that you're doing in life, the thing that constitutes
your major purpose at least. I invite it because the
things that you're doing daily that may offend other people
you think they're all right or you wouldn't be doing
them and you're going to keep on doing them if somebody
doesn't call them to your attention is that right? - [Students] Right. - [Napoleon] So you need a
source of friendly criticism it's one of the most marvelous
things and I'm not talking about these people who
don't like you and criticize you just because they don't
like you that's no good, I wouldn't have let that have
any effect on me whatsoever. And on the other hand I wouldn't
pay too much attention to the person who gives me friendly criticism just because he loves me. You know you can do yourself justice what standards that way. I've heard it said out in
Hollywood that those stars are that when they begin to
believe their press agents and sometimes they do they're
just about through. That's right. Well you need to have the
privilege ladies and gentlemen of looking at yourself through
the eyes of other people. You need that privilege,
that we all need it, because I lecture you when
you walk down the street, you don't look the same the
other fella seizures you think you look to yourself. When you open their mouths
and speak in conversation or otherwise, you don't the
what registers and the other men's mind is not always what you think is registering at all. You need criticism, you need analysis, you need people to point out
to any changes that you ought to make because we all have
to make changes as we go along because we wouldn't grow. But did you know that the
majority of people resent any kind of suggestion or
criticism whatsoever that from what they're doing? Anything at all it would change
their way of doing things they resent it and consequently
they do themselves great damage by resenting it. Friendly criticism, soon
someone has said that there's no such thing as constructive criticism . I can't buy that I think
there is such a thing as constructive criticism,
I think it's wonderful. I think it's absolutely wonderful. Just remember that no matter what you do, who you are, how well you do it, you'll never get a 100%
approval from the crowd, don't expect it and
don't be disturb too much if you don't get it. Loyalty, number 20, loyalty
to all of whom loyalty is due. Loyalty comes at the top of
the list in my book of rules of qualifications the people that
I want to be associated with. If you don't have loyalty to
the people that have a right to your loyalty, you don't have anything, no matter how brilliant you
are, how sharp or smart, how well educated the smarter
you are the more dangerous you may be if you don't have
loyalty if you can't be loyal to the people that you have
a right to your loyalty. How many of you are loyal to the people that you're supposed to be? Well, that's grand. I don't mean to make any of you tell lies and I'm sure you wouldn't, but I just wanted you to
just check up you see when you start voting on something
before you do it usually speaking you stop to think well now, do I have loyalty, do I? And if you don't have it while
you think of the person in connection with which you
don't have that loyalty and you decide maybe to do something about it. Now I have loyalty to people
that I don't even like, but I do have a sense of
obligation to them if I am related to them in business or
professionally or otherwise, or in the family circle
there are few people either that I don't particularly like, but I'm loyal to them because
I have that obligation. They wanna be loyal to me
that's alright they don't that's their misfortune not mine. I have the privilege of
being loyal and I'm going to after that privilege because
of the values I get out of it because I have to live with this fellow. I have to sleep with him, I
have to look in the mirror every morning to shave his face, I have to give you my bath
every once in a while, and you know after y'all
good terms with him, you can't live with a fellow that closely and not be on good terms with him. To thine own self be true and
it must follow as night to day thou canst not then be false to any man, and Shakespeare never wrote
anything more beautiful and more philosophical than that. To your own self be true,
be loyal to yourself, because you have to live with self. And if you're loyal to yourself
the chances are you'll be lawyer to your friends and
your business associates. And number 23 the necessary
attractiveness of personality to induce cooperation. How about this business of
a attractive personality is it something you're born
with or is it something that you must do about on your own initiative? (muffled speech) You can acquire it there's only one trade, only one of the 25 factors they
go to pick up an attractive personality that you're
born with or not born with, this the case may be only one. - [Student] Personal magnetism. - [Napoleon] Personal
magnetism, and you can even do something about that and
certainly all of these other 24 factors you can do something
about every one of them because there every one subject
to cultivation through what? - [Student] Personal initiative. - [Napoleon] Personal
initiative of course, you've got to do it yourself. First of all you've got to
know how you stand on each of these points, you've got to
know how you stand and you can't always take your own word on it, you've got to get your
wife or your husband or somebody else to tell you. Sometimes you make an you have
an enemy and he'll tell you where you fall down. Did you know that enemies
were good things to have once in a while? Why? (muffled speech) Of course, believe you me
they don't pull punches, and if you'll examine what your
enemies are those who do not like to say about you, the
chances are that you might learn something of value, if
nothing else you learn at least to see to it that you don't
let them tell the truth about you, whatever they say it's not
correct because you're gonna be so straight in the road
that whatever they say about you derogatory is not going to be true. That's an advantage isn't it? So don't be afraid of enemies, don't be afraid of people
who don't like you, because they may say things
that put you on the track of discovery or something that you need to know about yourself. I had a salesman come in
and see me some years ago, and he said he'd been with
his company about 10 years, he had made a wonderful
record, had several promotions, was up the big man and all of a sudden, six months previously he
soon began to go down, people customers that
they used to call on with used to give him the business
with the frown on him, and I noticed when he came in
that he had one of these big Texas 10-gallon hats on I said, by the way how long have you had that hat? He said I got about six
months ago down Texas, well I said listen fella,
are you selling in Texas? He says no I don't make Texas very often. I said oh listen, you wear
that hat only when you go down to Texas, because
they don't like that hat, doesn't look good on you. Well he said would that
make it a difference? I said you'd be surprised
what a difference it'll make, your personal appearance. Some people just don't
like the way you look and they won't do business with you. Yes you can do something
about your personality, you can find out the traits
that you have that irritate other people and you can
correct those traits, but you have to do it yourself, you have to make the discovery yourself, or you have to get
somebody who's frank enough to do it for you. And then number 24, the
capacity to concentrate full attention upon one subject at a time. When you start to make a point
exploit it right down to its final analysis make, a
climax and then get on to your next one. Don't try to cover too
many points at one time, if you do you'll not
cover any points at all. I wonder how many of you've
been making that mistake in your relations with other people
and in selling and in public speaking whatever you're doing. It used to be one of my
most outstanding weaknesses, I used to do just that very thing, and I had a man come to me
and call that to my attention. I think, no training if I ever
had the public speaking was as valuable as that, and it was for free, he didn't charge me anything for it. He said you have a wonderful
command of English, you have a marvelous
capacity for enthusiasm, you have a tremendously big
store of the illustrations of everything but he
said you have a bad habit of taking off after something
out there that's not related to the point you're making
and then coming back later on picking up the point in the
meantime it's gotten cold. You see, well brace yourself
on that capacity to concentrate full attention upon one subject at a time, whether you're speaking,
whether you're thinking, or whether you're writing
or teaching whatever you do, let's concentrate on one thing at a time. And then on the habit of
learning from your mistakes, if you don't learn from
your mistakes why you might just as well not make them. (laughs) That is the truism tell me what is. I never see a man duplicating
a mistake over and over again that I don't think of
that old Chinese pauperism, if a man fool me once shame on the man but it could fool me twice shame on me. A lot of people should say shame
on me because it just don't seem to learn from mistakes at all. And number 26 our willingness
to accept full responsibility for the mistakes of one's subordinates. If you have subordinates
and they make mistakes, it's you who have failed
and not the subordinates, remember that when you? Either train him how to do
the thing right or else, put him in some other job or
you won't have to supervise and let somebody else do that. But the responsibility is yours if the person working under you
is subordinate to you. Number 27 the habit of
adequately recognizing the merits and abilities of others. Don't try to steal the
thunder from the other fellow, if he's done the good job
give him all the credit, give him double credit, give
him all he's entitled to, rather than less. Another pat on the back has
never been known to hurt anybody when you know he has done a good job. The most successful people
like recognition and sometimes people work harder for
recognition than they will for anything else, some people
are incorruptible you know no matter how you can't over
flatter them because they know what the capacity is, if you
go beyond that begin to be suspicious at you. Most people however I believe
are corruptible when it comes to this business of flattery, you can over flatter them
and they tend to believe you, and that's bad for them and for you too. There was a book written that
was widely distributed all over this country and the
central theme of that book was, if you wanna get along in
the world flatter people. Well flattery is as old as the world, it's one of the most deadly
and one of the oldest weapons and one of the most dangerous. Now I like approbation, I
like those five people that happen to know me and complement me, I enjoy it but if they'd gone, if what I was it followed
me out said well Mr. Hill, I appreciate all that you've
done for me and all that sort of thing but by the way would
you mind if I came around the house tonight I'd like to talk to you about a business proposition. You see right away I said well
now he respected me in order that he may get some of my
time and he may get some benefits from me, so too much flattery, too much commendation
is not so good either. Well anyhow, a positive
mental attitude at all times, 29 but I wanted to call
your attention to number 28, the habit of applying the
golden rule principle in all human relationships. I'm not gonna ask you to vote on that one, I'm only gonna call your
attention to the fact that one of the finest things
you can do for yourself, is to put yourself in the
other fellows position when you go to make any
decision or engage in any transaction involving the other fellow, just put yourself in the
other person's position before you make a final decision, and if you do that the chances
are that you will always do the fair thing by the other man. Number 30 is a habit of
assuming full responsibility for any task that you've undertaken. Not coming back with an alibi. Did you know the one thing I
preached the majority people are the most active most adept in doing? Alibis, my oh my, oh my, alibis creating a reason why
they didn't succeed or didn't get the job done or didn't do the thing. It's the majority of
people who create alibis would put half as much time
into doing the thing right or trying to do the right that
they put into the explaining why they didn't do it, you
know they get a lot farther in life, and be much better off. And generally speaking the
man who is the most clever at creating an alibi is
the most inefficient man in the whole works. They make a profession of spending alibis, they will pick them up in
advance over they are called on the carpet or get caught over the barrel they have an answer. There's only one thing that
counts and that's the success, the results is are what count, results. I went through an epigram
covering the subject that I thought was very effective. Success requires no explanations, failure permits no alibis. In other words if it's a
success you don't need any explanations and if it's a
failure you all the alibis and explanations in the
world won't do any good, it's still a failure isn't it? And number 31, the habit of
keeping the mind occupied with that which one
desired and not with that which one does not want. You know the vast majority
of instances in which people engage in personal initiative
is in connection with the things they don't want. Have you ever thought of that? Now there is one place where
most people don't have to be taught to take the personal initiative, they really work at it, work
at thinking about all the things they don't want
and that's precisely what they get out a lot. The things that they think about, things that they tune their minds to. Now there's a little place
where that word transmute can come into a play. Instead of thinking about
the things you don't want, the things you fear, you distrust, the things you dislike, think about all the things you like, all the things you want, and all of things you're going
to become determined to get. I must tell you something
that happened last Saturday. I went down to the travel
agency to get my ticket changed so I can come back on
Monday instead of Sunday. When I walked in the
manager of the travel agency grabbed my hand when he saw who
I was and introduced himself and started into selling
me "Think and Grow Rich. (students laughing) And a little while, while he
still had a hold of my hand, talking to me, a man came in,
a friend of his who connected to the one of the airlines
and he heard the name Napoleon Hill and he
grabbed the other hand, started to sell me "Think and Grow Rich. And he said, you may be
interested in knowing that before I was with the airline, I had to say the organization
was approximately 100 people, and I required
every salesman to have all of your books. That was a must. Well, I felt pretty
good, as I started out, there were two very nice looking
young lady standing on the sidewalk, giving out to election literate, and as I pass by, one of them said, aren't you in Napoleon Hill, I turned around and
Bob, I said, yes, I am. Who are you? She said, well, I was at a
woman's club about two years ago, when you delivered an address
and this is my cousin here, both of our husbands
are very successful now, due to the fact they have read your books. I went on over to my car and
the policeman was making out of tickets, you see all this talk (laughs) and he says, this the pay off. I put a penny in there thinking
that be all I would be in there, but all of this nice
conversations I was getting, I stopped so they used my vanity in it. And when I got there, this police women was
making out the ticket, she had is about halfway made up, and I walked up there 'cause
he didn't know who the car was. I walked up to him, I said,
now you wouldn't do that to Napoleon Hill would you? He said, who? I said, Napoleon Hill. He said, no, I wouldn't
do that to Napoleon Hill, but I certainly would do it to you. (students laughing) I introduced myself, I took out my credit card
and handed it to him and my driver's license and he said, well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. He took the tablet, tore
it up and he said that we just forget about that. And he said, you may be
interested knowing that I'm on the Glendale police force as a
result of reading your book. (students laughing) Well, the subject now is a
positive mental attitude. I wanna call your attention
to the fact that there's nothing constructive and worthy
of man's efforts ever has been or ever will be achieved, except that which comes from
a positive mental attitude, based on definitely of purpose, and activated by a burning
desire and intensified until the burning desire is
elevated to the plain of applied faith. Now, here are five steps, five different conditions of the mind, all of which lead up to a
positive mental attitude. Take number one for instance, wishes. Everybody has a stock of wishes. They wish for this, they wish for that, and the wish for the other thing. We all have wishes. Well, nothing very much
happens when you just wish for things, does it? - [Student] No. - [Napoleon] No, nothing happens. Well, when you go a little bit
further, you become curious, you putting a lot of time
through idle curiosity. And do you think anything
ever happens worthwhile you connect to the expression
of idle curiosity? However you can, and you
do consume it a lot of time oftentimes with idle curiosity, don't you? You put in a lot of time
oftentimes just studying what your neighbors do or do not do, what your competitors do or do not do, it just out of idle curiosity. Well, that's not leading to
a positive mental attitude. Then a step above that you have hopes, your wishes now I'll take it
all in a more concrete form. They become hopes, hopes of achievement, hopes of attainment,
hope of accomplishment, hopes of accumulation,
of things that you want. Just hope by itself is
not very thick is it? Because we all have a block of hopes, but not all of us who
have hopes have success. We just hope for success. It is however better than
wishing for it, isn't it? Or what is the difference
between a hope and a wish? (muffled speech) That's right. A hope is taking on,
it's beginning to take on the nature of faith, isn't it? That's the idea. You're transmuting your wish
into a very desirable state of mind known as faith. Then you come out there, you
set up your middle attitude to where your hopes are
translated into something else known as a burning desire. Now, is there a difference
between a burning desire and an ordinary desire? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] That's right. A burning desire is an intensified
desire based upon hope, based upon definiteness of purpose. How does one go about developing a burning desire for anything? (muffled speech) If I didn't know the
answer to this believe me, I could get me a flog of
answers here, couldn't I? That's fine. Well, a burning desire is an
obsession or desire, isn't it? And it certainly, you
cannot have a burning desire without a motive or motives
backing it, can you? The more motive you can
have for a definite thing, the quicker you will have pan
your emotions into what is known as a burning desire. But however, that's not enough. There's something else. There's another state
of mind you must have before you can leave your success. And what is that? - [Students] Faith. - [Napoleon] Applied faith. Now then you have transmuted wishes, idle curiosity, hopes,
and even a burning desire. You stepped all those up
into something still higher, and that is applied faith. What is the difference
between applied faith and the ordinary belief in things? (muffled speech) That's right. That word applied might well
be the synonymous to action. You might say active faith. Applied faith and active
faith is are exactly the same means the same thing. Faith backed by action. Something that you do about it. A prayer brings positive results
only when it is expressed in its positive mental attitude. And the most effective
priorities are those expressed by individuals who have
conditioned their minds to have vigilating in terms of a
positive mental attitude. (upbeat music) Do you have any idea each one of you, let me pop this question
to each one of you. Do you have any idea of the
portions amount of your time that you devote in each day in
thinking of the negative side of things in comparison
with the positive side? Wouldn't it be interesting if
you kept the tabulation for two or three days of
the exact amount of time you put in thinking about
the no can do side of life, and they can side or the
positive sides and negative side. You might be astounded that
even the most successful people would be astonished to find
out how many hours they put in each day in negative thinking. And the very outstanding
success in the world, the great leaders in the world, put in very little if any
time in thinking on the negative side, they put
in all the time thinking on the positive side. I once asked Henry Ford if
there was anything in the world he wanted or wanted to
do that he couldn't do and he said, no, he didn't believe there was. I asked him if there ever had been, he said, oh yes, back in the early days
before he had learned how to use his mind. And I said, well, I just,
what do you mean by that? Well, he said, now, when I wanna say, I wanna do a thing, I start in finding out
what I can do about it, to start doing that and I don't
bother about what I can't do because I just let that alone. That was a homeless statement
but I want to tell you, there's a world of philosophy
wrapped up in that space, but he's put his mind to doing
something about the parts that he could do something about, and thinking about that and
not about the part that he couldn't do anything about. I eventually this
suggestion to the people, the problems with the majority of people, the problems, the difficult problem, they will immediately begin
to tell you all of the reasons why the problem can't be solved. And if there are some things
about the problem that are favorable, some that are
not favorable other than the majority of people will
see the things that are unfavorable first and oftentimes never see the favorable side. I don't believe there are any
problems in connection with which you can't do something in connection with which are not
some favorable sides to it. I can't think of a single
problem that could confront me that I wouldn't have a
favorable side to it. If nothing else, the favorable
side wasn't consistent in the fact that I would say, if
it's a problem I can solve, I will solve it. If it's a problem I can't
solve, I'm not worried about it. And that's something. But the majority of people
when they're confronted with a difficult propositions or
problems that they can't solve, they start worrying and then
they go into what kind of a state of mind, negative state of mind. And do you ever accomplish
anything worthwhile when you're in that state of mind? - [Students] No. - [napoleon] No, you don't. You're all in buddy in the water. When you make your mind negative, you'll never accomplish
anything worthwhile. You have to learn to keep your
mind positive all the time. When you wanna do things worthwhile. Does a positive mental
attitude attracts attract to opportunities or does it repel them? - [Students] Attract. - [Napoleon] Does a negative
mental attitude attract favorable opportunities
for you or repel them? It repels them. Does it? Definitely. And does that repelling of
opportunities have anything to do with your right
to have opportunities? Nothing whatsoever. Absolutely not. You may be just, you may have
the right to do all of the good things in life. You may be entitled to them, but if you have a
negative mental attitude, you will repel the
opportunities leading to the attainment of those things. So your job manly is to
keep your mind positive, so it will attract to you
the things that you want, the things that you desire, the things that you are going after. Have you ever stopped to think why it is that prayer generally
doesn't bring anything but except a negative result, have you ever stopped
to wonder about that? You know, I believe that's
the biggest stumbling block of most people in all religions
is they don't understand why prayer sometimes brings
the negative results, or generally brings negative results. How you couldn't expect anything else, because there's a law that governs that. And the law is that your
mind attracts to you the counterpart of the things of the mind, of the things that the
mind is feeding upon. There's no exception to that rule, and that's the law. There's no exceptions for anybody. So if you want to attract
through prayer or otherwise, the things that you desire, you have to make your mind positive. Not only have to believe, but you have to put action
back to that belief, and trying to mute it into
a faith, applied faith, and you can't have applied faith in a negative state of mind, the two just don't go together. Constructive mottos are often
used by people who recognize what a powerful influence once
daily environment has on the maintenance of a positive mental attitude. The entire industrial plant
of the RG Turner Company with 2000 employees was positive
eyes by placing mottos printed in large letters
in all departments and changing them weekly, such as
the ones that you see here. Now, those mottos were
written for a purpose. Every department in that
great sprawling plant, just start across, every
department had those mottos to replace that regular
sometimes daily in the cafeteria, the other departments weekly, and the mottos are written in
the letters I had to put hot so that you could read them all
the way across the building. And believe you me, every time they walked
into their department, where they saw that motto. By the way, we had a funny
experience with them. I was standing in the cafeteria
one day when the motto was placed up there, see the cafeteria
was a place where all the men lined up to get their meals
noontime and we could catch them all there at one time
or another during the day. And the motto read the, just remember that your real
boss is the one who walks around under your hat. I'd take that to be as
plain as mud to anybody, who read this, you're the real boss and final analysis, but I heard a man let out of
Indian yell, he said, boy, that's what I've always said. I've always known that
my foreman was allowed. (students laughing) Now, at the top of the page
is a method by which one made transmute failure into success, poverty into riches, sorrow
into joy, fear into faith. The transmutation must
start with a positive mental attitude because success,
riches and faith, do not make feathers with
a negative mental attitude. The transmutation procedure is simple, now here it is. Now you can very well afford
to come back to this many times and assimilate it and make it your own. Number one, when failure
overtakes you start thinking of it as if it had been a success. You think that would be difficult to? You think it will? No, it wouldn't No it wouldn't at all. In other words, thinking of it
as what would have happened, if it had been a success
instead of a failure, seeing yourself in the success side, in the situation and
not in the failure side. Start imagining or imaging the
circumstances of the failures in your own imagination
as being a success. Start also looking for the
seed of an equivalent benefit, which comes with every state
around there is where you will be able to transmute this
failure into success. 'Cause every adversity, every
failure and every defeat has the seed of an equivalent benefit. And if you go to searching for that seed, you a lot to take a
negative mental attitude toward the circumstance, you will take a positive mental attitude because you're sure to find that seed. You may not find it the
first time you look for it, but eventually you will find it, if you keep on. That's step number one. Number two, when poverty is
prejudice to catch up with you, or has actually caught up, start thinking of it as riches
and visualize the riches and all the things that
you would wish to do with actual riches. Also start looking for the seed of an equivalent benefit of poverty. I remember when I was a little boy, sitting on the bank of the river, down in why it's going
to be what I was born just after my mother had died. Before my stepmother
came along, I was hungry. I didn't have enough food. I was sitting there on
the bank of the river, wondering if I couldn't catch
some fish and maybe fry some fish and have something to eat. And as I sat there, I don't
know what caused me to do this, but I shut my eyes and
looked into the future, and I saw myself going away
and becoming famous, wealthy, and coming back to that very
spot charging up the river on a horse, a mechanical horse
that was run by steam. I could see the steam
pouring out in his nostrils. I can hear his horse shoes
picking on the rocks. It was so vivid to be here. In other words, I built
myself into a state of ecstasy there in that hour of poverty
and need and want and hunger. Years passed, and the time came
when I drove my Rolls-Royce into that very spot, the
car that I paid $22,500 for. I drove my Rolls-Royce
into that very spot. And I went back and imaged
again, that childhood scene, where I had been there in
poverty and in want and in hunger and I said, well, I don't
know whether my imaging this back in the early days, I didn't think to do, is
it not maybe hit dead. Maybe I kept alive that hope
and eventually translated that hope into faith and
eventually that faith brought me not only a steam horse, but something of much
value and much more costly, than the steam horse. Looking forward and imaging the
things that you ought to do, trying transmuting
unfavorable circumstances, not versus into something that's pleasant, by that I mean, switching your
mind away from thinking about the unpleasant things over
to something that's pleasant. And then again, number three, when fear overtakes you, just remember that fear is
only faith in reverse gear, and start in terms of faith
by seeing yourself translating faith into whatever circumstance
or things you desire. I don't suppose anybody ever
escapes experiencing the seven basic fears at one time or another. And most people that experienced them all the way through life, but certainly if you allow
fear to take possession of you and to to grip you it'll become a habit, and it certainly will attract to you all of the things that you don't want. You have to learn deal
with fear by transmuting it or translating it or
transforming it over in your mind into something that often disappear. In other words, faith,
if you fear poverty, come as thinking of yourselves
in terms of opulence and of money, and thinking of ways
means that you're going to earn that money and acquire what
you're going to do with it actually again, whether you
can daydream and there's no end of the daydreaming you do. And it's far better to daydream
about the money you're going to have that it is to fear the poverty that you know you already have. I assure you, this is no virtue,
no benefit in sitting down and be mourning the fact
that you are a power district and or that you need money and
you don't know how to get it. I honestly believe that there
isn't anything in this world that I need that money can buy
or anything else can buy that I can't get if I want it. I don't think in terms of what I can get. I think in terms of what I can get. And I've been doing that for a long time. And it's a wonderful thing
with which to condition your mind and to be positive. So the plan when circumstances
arrive where you need the positive mental action, you're
in the habit of reacting in a positive way at all times,
rather than in a negative way. You don't get a positive mental
attitude just by wishing for it, you get it by weeding a
web, weaving a cord of the rope at a time day by day, little at a time, you don't just get it overnight. (upbeat music) Create in your imagination an
army of invisible guides who will take care of all your
needs and all your desires. And there they are. You've heard me speak
of my invisible guides. And if you weren't in this philosophy, if you didn't understand metaphysics, you probably wouldn't say that
was a very fantastic system that I worked up. But I'm sure it's not a fantastic system. I'll assure you that it looks
at it for all of my needs and all of my wants, I will admit
to last week I became a little bit careless and the guide
to some physical health let me down for a day or two,
but I did something about it. I came to his rescue. I gave him a jab in the ribs
and woke him up and believe you, I've got more
energy now that I've had since we started this course. So it's a good thing that
I had that little cold because it made me a little
bit more particular to express gratitude to this
guy, to sound physical health, not neglected. I fully realize that these guides are the creation of my own imagination. I'm not kidding myself or
anybody else about that, but for all practical purposes, they represent real
answers and real people. And each one is performing the exact duty that I assigned to it, and doing it all the time. The first of these guides is the guide to physical sound health. Why do you suppose I
put that as number one? (muffled speech) And what in the world could
the mind do going around in a body that has to be supported
by crutches all the time. Good, strong physical body
is the temple of the mind. And it has to be sound. It has to be healthy. There has to be plenty of energy there. When you turn on the old enthusiasm button and there's no energy, there's no energy there, you can't just generate
something out of nothing. You got to have a store of
energy and energy is physical. It's physical in nature and
it's also a mental in nature. But I don't know of anybody
who can express intense enthusiasm whose body is a
series of aches and pains. So the first deal is to yourself
is to your physical body. To see that it responds to all
of your needs all the time, does the thing that it was supposed to do. And you a little bit more help than just what you can give during the
day because when you lay your body down and nature goes to work on it, give it a tuneup, and working over and you have to have this trained entity called the
guide to downhill to that job, to supervise it and to see it go properly. And then this number two, the
guide to financial prosperity. Why do you suppose I put that
second in importance only? (muffled speech) Do you know of anybody that
can be a very great service to others without money? How long can you get along without money? Now you've got to have money. You've got to have a money consciousness. And this entity that you're
building up here thinks this guide gives you
a money consciousness. My guide is so controlled
however that he does make money. My God, I don't permit that. I don't permit myself to become greedy. If there was an over amount for
money or to pay too much for the money that I get, I pay
enough, but not too much. I know people who pay too much, you die too young. Because they put too much
effort into accumulating money that they didn't need and couldn't use, they always purposes concern
would be the cause or the sellers to fight over it
after they were passed on. Now, that's not going to happen to me, I have enough, but not too much. And this guide it's his
business to see that I stop when I get in there, I
don't want to do much. Do you know, this money getting
business becomes a kind of a vicious circle with a lot of people, it becomes a vicious circle. You get in there, then you say, I'll make my first million then I'll quit. I remember the time when
Bing Crosby announced to his brother, who's his manager when
they made the first $50,000, that was enough, they were gonna quit. It got down to where they make
over $1 million every year, and still working harder
than they ever did before. Struggling in a rat race. I'm not speaking in a
derogatory manner you understand that Bing's a friend of mine
and I greatly admire him but I'm speaking of all
people in that category who paid too much for trying to get things that they don't need. This is a philosophy dealing
with economic success, but success wouldn't
consistent if you're destroying your life and dying too
young because you tried to get too much of anything. Stop when you get enough. Make better uses of
things you have right now, instead of trying to get a
lot of more things that you're not gonna make any use of it all. What a wonderful thing it is
that statement that comes out of the Bible, I will
translate it to verbatim, but the meaning of it is not too much, not too little of anything. Not too much, not too little,
just enough of everything. I want to learn what it
is though not too much. That's one of the blessings
of this philosophy, gives you a balanced life. You learn what is enough
and what's too much. Then the next one is the most important. The guide to the peace of mind. What good would it be to
you if you had everything, if you owned everything in the world, we could collect a royalty
from every person living, if he didn't have peace of mind. What good would it be? Now, the reason I'm emphasizing
these points along here, my friends is if I've had
the privilege of knowing intimately the most outstanding
and the most successful and the richest man that this
country has ever produced. I mean, sleeping in their
houses, eating with him, knowing their families, and
their wives and their children, not seeing what happened to
their children after they died and passed on, I've seen all of that. And I know the importance of
learning delivered balanced life so that you can have
peace of mind as you go along, so that you can make your
occupation or your daily labor, whatever it is, the game that
you're getting joy out of, not something that'd be a
partner dreaded, but a game, if you play use, you play
as an ardent players would play a game of golf or some
other game that he loves. I have always said this, one of the sins of civilization
is consistent in the fact that so few people are
engaged in a labor of love. Things that they like to do. Most people are doing things
because they have to eat and sleep and have some clothes to wear. When a man or a woman gets to the position before he or she can do the
thing that is being done for the sake of love, because they wanna do it, I want to tell you
they're really fortunate, and this philosophy leads
to that very condition, but you'll never attain that
position until you learn to maintain a positive mental attitude, at least a major portion of your time. Out of all of those men that
collaborated with me in the building of this philosophy, and they represented every
outstanding success in every field you might say of that area. Out of all of those men, there was only one that I
could say that even vaguely approached having peace of mind, along with his other successes. John Burrows undoubtedly was
the one that came near it. I would say the one that
came next near his suit was Mr. Edison, and I would place
Mr. Carnegie as number three. And I'll tell you why he
takes position number three. In the latter part of his years, he practically lost his mind, trying to find ways and
means of disgorging himself of his fortune and giving it away to where it would do no harm. It almost drove him crazy. His obsession, his major
obsession in the latter part of his days was to get this
philosophy well-organized while he's leaving and into
the hands of the people. So it would provide them with the knowhow by which they can acquire material things, including money without violating the rights of other people. That's what he wanted. More than anything else in the world. (indistinct) No, he did not. Mr. Carnegie died in 1919 before
I had even translated this into a writing where I've
written the first books on it, but he had checked with
me and double-checked on 15 of the 17 principles. The two people that I always
regretted didn't live to see me in the day of my triumphs after
having seen me in the days of my discouragement and opposition, those who were my
stepmother and my sponsor, Andrew Carnegie. It would have been a great
joy to me and quite enough compensation for a lifetime
of effort if I could have displayed to those who
were wonderful people, the results of their
handiwork and manipulating me, and directing me at the time
when I needed direction. Now I'm not so sure that they
are not standing looking over my shoulder now, you know, there are times when I'm sure
somebody is standing looking over my shoulder, because I
say and do things beyond my reasonable intelligence. (applause) Thank you very much. That was not in my notes,
and the lady brought it up in her question, but I
have thought about it a great many times. And I have noticed in that
more so in recent years than ever that the things that I do, which might be called
brilliant and outstanding, always are done by this man
who's standing here looking over my shoulder and always in
the times of an emergency, when I must make decisions,
important decisions, I can almost feel that man
telling me what decision to make. I can almost turn around and
imagine he's standing in there in person, there is an influence there, there's no two ways about it. I could not have a good time
as any for me to tell you this, I could never have done what
has been done in connection with this philosophy,
if I had had nothing, but the collaboration of
those five or six other men that told me, that
wouldn't have been enough. I've had more than that. Believe you, me. And the reason I haven't said
anything about it before is, I just don't wanna get in
the position of having people feel that I have been
savored, or if I have anything that anybody else can have. My honest opinion is that
I don't have anything that you can't have. I think whatever sources of
inspiration I'm drawing upon, you can have that same source. This is just as available
to you as it is to me. I believe that with all of my heart. And then the next one
of these guides here, the they're twins, the
guides of hope and faith. Now, how far would you get in
life if you didn't have that eternal burning flame of hope and faith working in your soul. It wouldn't be anything worth working, worth living for would there? So you have to have a system, a system for keeping your mind positive, because there are things to destroy hope and faith aint there? People, circumstances, things
that you can't control even that pop up in your life. And you've got to have a system
to antidote those things, to offset them, something
that you can manipulate and draw upon. And I know of no better
systems than these eight guides that I have adopted
because they worked for me, I taught them to a great
many other people for whom they work just as well as for me. And then next two are also twins. These guides are the love and romance. I don't believe that anything
worthwhile can be accomplished unless a man or a woman
romanticized whatever you're doing. In other words, if you
don't put some romance in whatever you're doing, you don't get any fun out of it. And certainly if there's
no love in your heart, then you're not just quite a human being. The main difference between
the lower animals and the human being is that the
human being is capable of expressing the emotion of love. It's a wonderful thing. It's a great thing. It's a great builder of
geniuses and of leaders, and it's a great builder and
maintainer of sound health, to have a great capacity to love, has been to have the
privilege of rubbing elbows with genius. There's no exception to that. It's absolutely true. And so the two guides love and
romance in my life their job is to keep me friendly
with what I'm doing in life and to keep me young in body and mind. And I do just that, believe you me. Not only keep me young in body and mind, but they keep me enthusiastic, they keep me sold on what I'm doing, and they take the drudgery
out of it's another road or words, I don't have any
such thing as hard work because I don't work at anything, I play at everything I do. Everything I do is a labor of love. I recognize, of course that
before you get in a position where you can economically
forget about earning a living, there is something that you
have to think about this maybe takes a little of the
pleasure out of work, but if you watch yourself, you can develop a system that
will make everything that you do, even washing dishes
or digging ditches, as you can make it a labor
of love because it is. When I go home, I help
Annie Lou, wash the dishes, not because she couldn't do it, but because I just wanna feel
as I'm up to good to help wash the dishes and I get
great joy out of doing it. (applause) And I'm not above working in
the garden because if I didn't know it, Annie Lou would
do it when I'm gone. And privately is a pleasure. Look at the bystander that
I brought back with me and all have good hair. Oh, it's a great thing to learn to be, to learn to live the simple life, to learn to be a human being
instead of a stiff shirt or something else that you don't wanna be, nobody wants to be. Love and romance, learn to
get that into your life, and learn to have a system
whereby that habit of love and romance will express yourself
in everything you do. Then this last one, the guide to overall wisdom. His job is to, he's the controller, the controller of the other seven, his businesses to keep them
active eternally engaged in your service, and also
to adjust you to every circumstance of your life
pleasant or unpleasant, so that you benefit
from that circumstance. I can choose to tell you
that nothing comes to mind in life that isn't greatest. I make grease out of everything
that comes to my mind, and the more unpleasant things that come, the more grist I get out of them, because I definitely grind them
to make sure that they won't be anything else, but grids. It's a wonderful thing to
recognize when you come to recognize that no experience
in life is ever lost, whether it's good or bad. No experience has ever lost
at all if you will make the right, adept patient
of yourself to it. You can always profit by
every experience in life, if you have a system
for doing it, of course, we just let your emotions run
wild and you go down under the, you know, those third
under these unpleasant experiences, you will attract
more unpleasant experiences than you will pleasant ones. But you knows there's a
peculiar thing about unpleasant circumstances, they're cowardly. And when you get to where you would say, come on over here, a little
fellow, I better set a harness right here and I'm gonna put you to work. Somehow though, they find
business around the corner and they don't come your way
so often when they know that you're gonna put them to work. You ever thought of that? If you fear unpleasant circumstances, they'll prop down on you and flux, they'll come in the back
door in the front door. They'll come in when you're not expecting, when you're unprepared to deal with it. I don't particularly invite
unpleasant experiences, but as they are foolish
enough to come my way, they'll find themselves round
up in my middle of life. I'll make bridge style
as sure as anything, but I will not go down under them. Internal vigilance is the
price that one must pay to maintain a positive mental
attitude because of these and other natural opposites
of positive thinking. And here they are. First of all, your negative
self constantly maneuvering for power over you. Did you know that there are
entities working in your makeup all the time, constantly
maneuvering to gain power over it on the negative side of law. And you have to be on eternally
on alert to see that those instances don't take you over. And then your accumulated
fears and your doubts on your self impose limitations. You have to deal with them constantly, less they get the upper
hand and less they become the dominating influence in your mind. And then the negative influences near you, including people who are negative. The people that you work with the closest, to people that you live with. Maybe some of your own
relatives that are negative. If you don't watch you'll
be just like they are because you will respond in kind. Maybe necessary for you to
live in the same house as somebody who's negative, but it's not necessarily
for you to be negative, just because you're in the
house with somebody who is. I'll admit it will be a
little bit difficult for you to immunize yourself against
that kind of an influence, but you can do it. I have done it, Mahatma Gandhi did it, look what he did with
humanizing himself against things he doesn't want. And then, number three, the
negative influences near you, including people who are negative. And number four, perhaps
some inborn negative traits you brought over with you from birth. Now these can be translated
into positive traits too, as soon as you phrase them out
and find out what they are. I'm convinced that there are
a lot of people who are born with natural traits of a negative nature. In other words, they, you
take a person who's born in an environment of
poverty for all this rules that are poverty stricken,
all the neighbors poverty stricken, he
saw nothing but poverty, felt nothing but poverty,
heard nothing but poverty talk. And that was the condition I was born in. And I know you can be
born with that trait. And it was one of the most
difficult things that I had to whip was this inborn trait of poverty. And then the worries
over the lack of money and the lack of progress in
your business and professional calling life, you can put in
most of your time with worrying over the things or you can
transmit that state of mind over into working always means
of overcoming those worries. Think about the positive side
instead of the negative side, worrying over the negative
side is not gonna do anything except to get you in deeper
and deeper and deeper. That's all it's going to do. Then unrequited love and
unbalanced emotional frustrations in your relationship
with the opposite sex. You don't have to let these
unrequited love affair, destroy your boundaries of
mind as so many people do. It's up to you to do something about it, to maintain a positive mental attitude, and to recognize that your
first duty is do yourself. Get control of yourself and do
not allow anybody emotionally or otherwise to upset your equilibrium. The creator didn't intend
that should be done. And you shouldn't let that be done. And then unsound health
either real or imaginary. You can worry an awful lot about that, about the things that you
think might happen to you but never do physically. You know, if it weren't
cause that we call it in the materia medical we call that hypochondria. That's a $2 and a half
word where the doctors. $5, yes, that's usually
$2 an hour is $5 now. And sometimes a lot more of them now. Well, you can put in another lot of time, but becoming negative over that. If you don't have a
positive mental attitude towards your health, you don't develop and develop
a health consciousness. Think in terms of health and
your mental attitude would have a tremendous amount to do with
what happens to your physical body there's no doubt about that. You can try that out
on anytime you please, when you think you're not feeling well, but let some good piece
of news come along, and how quickly you snap out of it. As you had that experience, you weren't feeling so badly at all, but what this good news did away with the feeling that you had. And then intolerance lack of
an open mind on all subjects, how much trouble that gives
some people and maintain a negative mental attitude. Then greed for more material
possessions than you need, I've already made
extensive comment on that. I'm talking about the things that you, the prices that you have to
pay and the things you have to conquer in order to have a
positive mental attitude. The grips of the real extent
of the power of your mind, and it's unlimited potential
for the attainment of anything you desire, then lack of a
definite major purpose and the lack of a definite philosophy by which you live and guide your life. You know, the vast majority
of people have no philosophy to live by did you know that? No philosophy they do by hook or crook, by chance, by circumstance, and
they're just like a dry leaf on the bosom of the wind. They go whichever way the
wind blows and there's nothing they can do by because they
have no philosophy of life, no set of rules to go by. Trusting the luck and the misfortune. And generally misfortune
is the one that rules. You have to have a philosophy
that you can live by. Now, there are many philosophies
finding philosophies that you can die by. I'm much more interested in
one that you can live by. And that's what we're
studying here in this. It's a philosophy that you can live by in such a way that the neighbors
around you look upon you as something desirable, they
feel happy to have you there, you feel happy to be there. You not only enjoy
prosperity and contentment and peace of mind, but you
reflect that in everybody that comes into contact with you. And that's the way that
people should live. That's kind of a mental
attitude people should have to live by. And then last but not least
habit of allowing others to do your thinking for you. If you're going to do that,
you'll never have a positive mental attitude because you
won't have your own mind. Everyone desires to be rich, but not everyone knows what
constitutes during riches. Here are the 12 great riches. I want you to familiarize
yourself with them. And before anybody can become rich, they would have to have a fairly
well bounced proportion of all of these 12 great riches. And I want you to notice
where I placed money with relative to its importance
in regard to the others. Number 12, there are 11 other things, even more important than money
if you're going to have a well by around a well balanced life. Positive mental attitude,
sound physical health, harmony in human relations,
freedom from fear, the hope of future achievement, the capacity for applied faith, willingness to share one's blessings, to be engaged in a labor of love, an open mind on all
subjects toward all people, complete self-discipline,
the wisdom with which to understand people and
then money to top it all off. And I thank you. (applause) We were given a copy
of our first edition of success unlimited as
you came into the door, and you would see one of my
contributions over on the middle two inside middle pages
called a challenge to life. This challenge to life is
something that I want to call your attention, because
that is my reaction to one of the worst
defeats that I've ever had in my entire career. I bring it to your attention
because it gives you an idea of how I go about transmuting
an unpleasant circumstance into something useful. Now, when this circumstance happened, I had the real reason to go out and fight. And I don't mean fight mentally or orally, I mean fight physically. If I had to settle the
business from behind pine trees with six shooters, it
would have been justified under the circumstances. But instead of that, I
elected to do something that would damage no one and
that would benefit myself. I elected to express
myself through this essay, which says that a challenge
to life, which says life, you can't subdue me
because I refused to take your discipline too seriously. When you try to hurt me, I laugh, and the laughter knows no pain. I appreciate your joy wherever I find it. Your sorrows neither
discouraged nor frighten me for there is laughter in my soul, a temporary defeat does not make me sad, I simply set the music
to the words of defeat, it turns into a song. Your tears are not for me, I like laughter much better. And because I like it, I use it as a substitute for
grief and sorrow and pain and disappointment. Life you are a fickle trickster, don't deny it, you slipped
this emotion of love into my heart so that you
might use it as a thorn with which to prick my soul, but I learned to dodge
your trap with laughter. You try to lure me with a desire for gold, but I have foods use by
following the trail leads to knowledge instead. You induce me to build
beautiful friendships, then convert my friends into enemies so you may harden my heart, but I aside dip your fickleness
by laughing off your attempt and selecting new friends in my own way. You cause men to teach me
a trade so I will become distrustful, but I win again
because I have possessed one precious asset,
which no man can steal. It is the power to think my
own thoughts and to be myself. You threaten me with death, but to me death is nothing
worse than a long peaceful sleep and sleep is the sweetest
of human experiences except in laughter. You build a fire of hope in my heart, then sprinkle water on the flames. But I go you one better
by rekindling the fire, and I laugh at you once more. Life you are linked as
far as I'm concerned, we will cause you have nothing
with which deliver me away from laughter and you are
powerless to scare me into submission, to a life of laughter then, I raised my cup of cheer. (applause) You may think it's easy
to have that kind of an emotional reaction to
an unpleasant experience where you've been damaged
and hurt and injured by those who should
have been loyal to you. This business are striking
back at people who have injured you or tried to injure you, is just a lack of self discipline. You have really become
acquainted with your own powers, or your own ways and means of
benefiting by those powers, if you stupid do the low level
of trying to strike back at some person who is
slander you, vilified you, or cheated you in one way or another, or even tried to do any of those things. Don't do it. Don't ever do it. Because you'll only lower
yourself in the estimation of yourself and of your creator. There's a better way, a better a weapon that I'm
trying to put into your hands with which you can defend
yourself against all who would injure you. And if you will take my word for it, and use the self discipline
based upon this lesson that we have to mind and never
allow anybody to drag you down to their level. You set the level on which you
wish to deal with the people. And if they want to come up
to your level, all right, if they don't let them
stay down on theirs. There's no sin in that. Set your own high level and
stand your ground come what may. I have a better way of defending myself, I have a mind. I know what to do with that mind. And I never am without defense. Now I've got that added to the lesson, but I did want you to get this idea. And when our editor chose this
challenge to lay it out or someone of my books to
publish in the first edition, I said, that's fine, and I
want every one of the students to have a copy of the magazine
because I won't tell them the story back in that essay. And you may be interested
in knowing that that essay, that essay was largely
responsible for the late Mahatma Gandhi becoming
interested in my philosophy and having it published throughout India. That essay has already
influenced millions of people and will in time be indirectly
or directly influence beneficially to millions of
people who have not yet born. So the power, it's not the
brilliancy of the essay, it's the thought back of it. Don't you know that you react
to these unpleasant things in life in such a way that
life can't conquer you, that nobody can conquer you. You've got laughter in your soul. I wanna tell you, you're
sitting very close to the plane on which the creator acts himself, when you've got laughter in your soul. It's a wonderful thing to have. A wonderful thing. Laughter, laughter in the
soul, laughter on the face, and I wanna tell you, you'll
never be without friends. You'll never be without opportunity, and you will never be without
a means of defending yourself against people who do not
know anything about laughter. I apologize for silence,
while you may remember what I have said about laughter. That was a suggestion that
your suggestion to self through which to dominate,
through which dominating thoughts and deeds are conveyed
to the subconscious mind, is the medium by which elf
discipline becomes a habit. Now the starting point in the
development of self discipline is definiteness of purpose. You will notice that
every one of these lessons come what may approach from
whatever angle you choose, you can't get away from that
term definiteness of purpose. It just stands out like a sore
thumb and you've got to get away from it, because it is
the starting point of all achievement of everything that you do, whether it's good or bad, you may be sure that it starts with definiteness of purpose. Now the reason for a
repetition of an idea, reputation of it is what do you think. Why should you go over, why should you write out
your definite major purpose for instance and memorize it
and go over it as a ritual day in and day out. Why should you do that? (muffled speech) Get it into the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind gets
into the habit of believing that which it hears often. And you can tell it a
lie over and over again in the end or you'll finally
get to where you don't know whether it's a lie or not, the subconscious doesn't leave it. I know of people who have
done just that thing. Obsessional desire is the dynamo
that gives life and action to definiteness of purpose. Obsessional desire. And obsessional desire is a desire that, how do you make a desire an
obsession in the first place? Let's get into that. (muffled speech) That's right, by living
with it in your mind, calling it into your mind, and seeing the physical manifestation
of it out there somewhere in the circumstances of your life. In other words, if you have
enough obsessional desire for enough money to buy a
new Cadillac, let's say, and you're now driving a Ford
or something less than a Ford. You know, you want that nice new Cadillac, you don't have enough
income to pay for it, you don't have enough money, what do you do? The first thing you do, you go over to the Cadillac
agency and get one of those nice new catalogs with
all the models in it. Then you turn the roll
over and you pick out the model you want. And every time you get in
that Ford and start down the street just before you start off, you kick off the starter
and then you shut your eyes for a few moments and you
see yourself sitting on top of a nice new Cadillac. Now does she purrs down the
street and you give her the gas, you imagine right now
that you already have a, you know you own this Cadillac, but you don't exactly have possession it. But for the time being, you're there at the
wheel of your Cadillac, Sounds silly, doesn't it? It may sound silly, but it is not silly. I can assure you it's not silly. I talked myself into my first
Rolls-Royce that very way. Did I ever tell you about how
I got my first Rolls-Royce? You remember that? My putting myself out on
the liam one evening in the Waldorf Astoria hotel saying
that I was going to have it and that before the week was
over and I didn't have enough money in the bank to get it. My student sitting right in
that audience who had the, exactly the same car that I
described even down to the wire, the orange colored wire wheels. And he called me at my hotel next morning, said, come on down, I
have your car, Mr. Hill. And I went down there and he had it. He had the legal transfer made out, and the keys, he handed them over to me, all he wanted to show me
was a little trick or two that you had to know about
a Rolls-Royce in order to get the best results out of it. He took me down to Riverside drive, we drove a little bit and he
got out and shook hands with him and said, well, Mr. Hill,
I'm very happy to have had the privilege of letting
you have this nice car. Wasn't that a wonderful
thing for a man to do? He hadn't said nothing
had been said about price. He said, well, the price
you fixe the price, I'll tell you what I paid for it, but he said, you need it worse than I do. I don't actually need it
at all, but you do need it, and I want you to have it. Be careful of what you set your heart upon through obsessional desire,
but for the subconscious mind goes to work on translating
that desire in which material equivalent. Self discipline cannot
be attained overnight. It must be developed step
by step by the formation of definite habits of thought
and physical action. You must go through the motion
of doing something about it. In other words, when Allen
comes on the stage here, do you notice the chemical
change that takes place in your mind while you're doing that? Of course you do. And I notice that, I feel
it out there on the stage, and it was 50 feet removed from you. I can feel the vibrations of it. But suppose that you sat in
your seat, just sat still in your seat and you repeated
those words in a monotone, like I am talking now. And then put some (indistinct) You will learn to become
enthusiastic by acting enthusiastically. That's definite. The reason I admonish you to be careful what you set your heart upon, is this. If you follow the instructions
laid down in this lesson, if you set your heart on anything, and stand by that decision, you're going to get it, and be sure before you
start any obsessional desire about anything, that the
thing that you are desiring is something that you will
be willing to live with after you get it, him or her. (students laughing) I thought you'd get a kick out of that. Oh yes, I know. I see a lot of cackling
around in this audience of people who are married,
who understand exactly what I'm talking about. What a marvelous thing it is
to demonstrate in your own mind something that you desire
above everything else, something that's hard to get maybe, and then come to know after
you've demonstrated that you wanna live with it, the rest of your life, that's a marvelous thing, but be careful what you demonstrate before you start demonstrating. You may be interested in knowing
that out of the 500 or more men that collaborated with me
in building this philosophy, every one of them was immensely wealthy. I didn't pay any attention
to any other kind. I was only after the ones that have made a big demonstration financially. I had no time to fool with a little boys. That wouldn't apply today,
but it's applied then. And you maybe interested in
knowing that every single solitary one of them had
an abundance of wealth, but they did not have peace of mind. They neglected in
demonstrating their wealth, to demonstrate along with
it the circumstances of life through which they would
not worship that wealth, through which it would
not be a burden to them, through which they
would have peace of mind in their relationship
with their fellow men. They didn't learn that lesson. If those men could have
had the remarks that I made when I stepped on this stage, the first five of them, they could have had that lesson, back in the early days before
they became immensely wealthy, they would have learned
how to balance themselves with this role so that would not have affected them adversely. To me, the most pitiful
site in the world is to see an extremely rich man who
doesn't have anything else, but riches, but monetary riches. And there are a lot of them in this world. The next most pitiful thing
is that boy or girl who has come into possession
of great riches without having earned them. Your power of thought is the
only thing over which you have complete unchallenged control. Control by the power of will. And given human beings
control over but one thing the creator must have
chosen the most important of all things. This is a stupendous fact that manage your most profound consideration. If you give it this
sort of a consideration, you will discover for yourself, the rich promises available
to those who become master of their mind power
through self discipline. Self-discipline leads to
sound physical health, and it leads to peace of mind
through development of harmony within one's own mind. I don't believe that I could
stand before an audience of my students, many of
whom know my background, and all of whom will
know my background before they were through working with me. I couldn't stand up with a
straight face and tell you that I have everything in
this world that I need, or can possibly use or
can possibly wish for, I have it in abundance, if I hadn't learned self discipline, because that's how I got it. There was a time when I had
very much more money in the bank than I have in the
various banks that I'm doing business with today, very much more, but I wasn't as rich as I am today. I'm very rich today because
I have a balanced mind, I have no grudges, I have no worries, I have no fears. I have learned through self
discipline to balance my life, balance my books with life. I may not be entirely at
peace with the income tax men, but there is a big boy up
somewhere stands looking over my shoulder that I am at
peace with all the time. And I wouldn't have been at
peace with him if I hadn't learnt the art of self discipline, of reacting to these pleasantries of life in a positive way,
instead of a negative way. I don't know what I would
do if somebody came up and hauled off and slapped my
face real hard without any provocation, I don't know what I would do. I'm still was pretty human I think, as that does not, I
would double up my fist, and if I was close up to
him I probably would hit him right here in the solar
plexus and he would go down with the depth of it, no
doubt I would do that. But if I had a few
seconds to think about it, instead of doing that, I would
pity him instead of hating him, pity him for being such a fool, as to do a thing like that. A lot of things that I
used to do the wrong way, I do the right way now. And because I've learned
to do them the right way through self discipline, I'm in a position to be at
peace with other people, to be at peace with the world, or particularly at peace with
myself and with my creator. That's a wonderful thing to have. No matter what other
kinds of riches you have, if you're not at peace with
yourself and with your fellow man and all those you work with, if you're not as pleased with them, then you're not rich, you'll never will be rich
until they learn through discipline to be at peace with all people, all races, all creeds. I have sitting here in this audience, Catholics and Protestants,
Jews and Gentiles, people of different
colors, different races. Well, to me you're all the same color, you're all the same religion. I don't know the difference,
don't wanna know the difference, because in my
mind, there is no difference. (applause) I've written above his idea
of letting petty things such as racial differences, anger me, or cause me to feel at the least out of
step with my fellow man. I just won't let those things happen. And there was a time when they did happen. And you know, one of
the curses of this world in which we're living in, particularly this melting
pot here in America, is that we haven't learned
how to live with one another. We are in the process of learning. And when we are all indoctrinated
with this philosophy, we will have a better world
here in the United States. And I hope it didn't spread over into some of the other countries too. (applause) Self discipline enables one
to keep the mind fixed on that which is wanted and all
that which is not wanted. If it didn't do anything else but that, if I'd learnt this lesson and
I didn't do anything else for you except start you on a habit or a plan whereby you occupy your
mind from here on out, mostly with the things you
desire and keep your mind off the things you don't desire, if you did nothing else but that, all the time and all the money
that you spend in this course would be paid back a thousand
times over because you'd experience a new birth, a
new opportunity, a new life. If you just learned
through self discipline, not to let your mind see upon
the things you don't want, upon the miseries, upon
the disappointments, upon the people who injure you. What I'm telling you to do
is it's much easier for me to tell you than it is for you to do it. I know that, I got an appreciative
of what a difficult thing it is to start in keeping your
mind occupied with the money that you're going to have
when you don't have any now. I know that. How do I know it? Well, I'll not tell you, you give a guess. I know all about it. - [Student] You went
through, you experienced it. - [Napoleon] That's right. I know what it is to be hungry. I know what it is to be without a home. I know what it is to be without friends. I know what it is to be
ignorant and illiterate. I know all about that. And I know how difficult it
is when you're illiterate, and literate and poverty-stricken
to think in time of becoming an outstanding
philosopher and the spreading his influence throughout the world. I know all about that, but I did it. I'm speaking now in the past tense. I did it. And if I can conquer the
things that I've conquered, I know that you can do
an equally good job, but you'll have to take possession. You'll have to be the person in charge. Takes possession of your own
mind and keep it so busy, occupied with the things that you want, the things you wanna do,
the people that you like, that you have no time left
to think about the things you don't want want and the
people you don't like. And speaking about people you don't like. Have you ever thought of
examining very carefully the people and as near as you can, without bias the people
you think you don't like, not to look for their faults
to justify your opinion on, don't do that. That's very easy. That's a natural thing. That's what the weak link would do, but a strong person will
keep himself in subjection through self discipline and
he will start in looking in the life of the person he
doesn't like for some of the things that he does like. And if you look fairly and squarely, you'll find some of those
things in every human being. There is nobody so bad in this world, but what he has some good in him. If you look for it, you can find it. If you don't look for
it, you'll not find it. I think one of the evils of
this age in which we're living, maybe it's the evil of all ages is that, when we come into contact with
other people if they give us the slightest reason
on earth for doing it, we might not only look for
all of their shortcomings, but we multiply those
shortcomings and step them up into something bigger than they are. And that's a great disservice
to the person who does it. Because you under evaluate. You can under evaluate
your enemies to where they destroy you, you can
underestimate your opposition too, and you'll have opposition, you'll always have it, but you can convert a
lot of that opposition from enemies into friends
if you adjust yourself and start to work on yourself first, don't start to work on the other fellow to convert him over to
your ways of thinking, start working on yourself, to become charitable,
to become understanding, to become forgiving. And if a person does you
an injury an out injury without provocation, you
have one of the grandest opportunities in the world to do what? (muffled speech) You have a preoperative
that he doesn't possess because he's lost initiative. If a person injures you
with or without provocation, he's lost the initiative and you have it. And what is that initiative? You have the prerogative
right to forgive him and pity him don't you? That's what you have. I want you to emphasize the
three mental walls of protection against the outside forces. Now you heard me speak about
those three mental walls on one occasion, but maybe
I spit folk only casually. And maybe I didn't make a
definite lasting impression upon you of the necessity a
building up a way of immunizing yourself against the outside
influences that would disturb your mental capacity or anger you, or make you unhappy or make you afraid, or take advantage of you in any way. I have this system and
it's works like a charm. Now, when you get out where
you have as many people knowing you all over the world, as I do, and there's many beloved friends
clamoring for appointments and so forth, as I have, you'll have to have a system
of choosing how many of them you will see and how many of you won't. That just goes without
saying, you have to have that. Maybe you don't in the beginning, I didn't in the beginning, but I do now. And I tell you that my
friends, my beloved friends, the one that I love all over the world, they take up all of my time
if I didn't have a system, you know, of keeping them from doing it. And I try to keep most of them
confined to dealing with me through my books, then I
can reach millions of them. But when they want to
deal with me in person, then I have to have a
system of telling how many can see me in a given amount of time. And this system is this series
of three imaginary walls. And they're not so imaginary either. They're pretty real. That first one is our other wide wall. It's so stems way out from
it and it's not too high, but it's high enough to stop
anybody that wants to get over the wall and get to me with anything, unless he gives me a very good
reason for wanting to see me. One of my students wouldn't
,they would never need to, well, they have each one
of them has a stepladder, they can go right over that
wall and show him the tall I don't even have to ask her, but outsiders who are not
privileged as students will have to go over that wall and they'd have to make contact in some sort of a formal way. They couldn't just ring
and ring my doorbell or my telephone because
I don't have any name, my name's not listed
in the telephone book. They'd have to go through some formality. Now, why do I have that wall? why don't I just leave it down and let everybody come to see me? Let everybody write to me
and answer all the letters that I receive all over. Why don't I do that do you suppose? (muffled speech) You may be interested in
knowing that on one occasion I received five mail sets full of letters, I couldn't even look at
the outside of the letters, let alone open them. I didn't have a secretary
to open the mail. And I would say the thousands
I've never even opened. They came from all over this country. It's not quite so bad today, but the very moment I get a
little publicity about something letters come to me from
all over the country. There's a write up about
me in the last issue of printers inc, and I'm
getting letters from people who knew me 35, 38 years
ago, right here in Chicago, who didn't know that I was here. So we have to have a system. Now, when they get over that first wall, they immediately come into
contact with another wall. It's not so big and not so commodious, but it's much higher, many times as high, and they can't go over that
one when they step the ladder. I tell you that you students can do that even if you had a step ladder, but there is a way of you getting over. I'm going to tip you off on this. If you have something I want, you can get over it very easily. (students laughing) Or if you have something
in common with me, which is the main thing
I don't mean to make that statement selfishly, I wanna clarify it. I mean, by that you can
get over that second wall and get to me very easily
if I am convinced that the time I devote to you is
going to be a mutual benefit to you and me both. But if it's just something
that's gonna benefit you and not me, the chances are
that you won't make it. There are exceptions, but
very, very few and I'd use my judgment as to whether
the acceptance came. And there's nothing selfish about that. It's of necessity. I assure you it's of necessity. (upbeat music) Then when you get over that second wall, you come in contact with one
that's very much more narrow, and it's as high as eternity, no living person ever gets over that wall. Not even my wife, as much as I love her, and as close as we are together, she doesn't even get over. She doesn't try, because
she knows that I have a sanctuary in my soul,
where nobody but my creator and myself commune, nobody, nobody at all. And there is where I do my best work. When I go to write a book,
I retire into my sanctuary, lay out that book, commune with my maker, get instructions, when I come
to an intersection in life and I understand which way to go, I go into my sanctuary, I ask for guidance and I always get it. Always, always. Don't you see what a wonderful thing it is to have this system of immunity. Don't you see how unselfish it is. Your first duty is to yourself. Shakespeare's marvelous poetic lines, to thy own self be true and it must follow as night to day though can
not then be false to any man. I was thrilled to the marrow
of my bones when I first read that, I have read it hundreds of times, I've repeated it thousands of times. 'Cause how true it is that's
your first duty is to yourself. Be true to yourself, protect your mind, protect your inner consciousness. Use self discipline to take
possession of your own mind and direct it to the things
you want and to keep it off the things you don't want. That's your prerogative. The creator gave you that
as the most important, precious gift of the creator to mankind, and you could do nothing less
than show your appreciation by respecting that gift and use it. Make up a list of five traits
of personality in connection with which you need
self-discipline for improvement. I don't care how perfect you are. There's not a person in this
class who couldn't sit down and if you will really
be honest with yourself, and if you don't know the answers, get your wife to tell you, she'll tell you some things
that you should get into this list, or your husband's maybe
he'll do a good job too. Maybe sometimes, some cases
you won't have to ask, the husband he will tell you about it, or the wife vice versa. But if find out five
things in your personality that you need to change
and write some down. Now, just for the sake
of experiment right now, write out in your mind,
just mentally the first one. Number one, surely everybody
in this room can think of one trait of personality
that you'd like to change. You're not going to do
anything about your defects until you take inventory
out of them and find out what they are and get them on
paper where you can see them and then start doing something about it. And after you discover these
five traits in connection with which you need to use self
discipline for improvement, you start immediately to develop the opposite of those traits. If you're in the habit of not
sharing your opportunities or your blessings with other
people start in sharing, no matter how much it hurts,
start in where you are. If you are greedy or anything
about that, start in sharing. If you've been in the habit of
passing on a little gossip to somebody, stop that for all time to come, just stop it, and start passing
on not gossip, but what? (muffled speech) Complimentary things. You'll be surprised why you
see a man blossom out he'll be a different person if you
start telling him about some of the things that you
know are good about him. And don't rub it on too thick, if you do, he'll wonder what you're after. Be reasonable about it. When anybody walks up to me
and shakes my hand and say, Napoleon, I have always
wanted to meet you, I appreciate you so much the
books that you've written. And I just wanted to tell
you that I have found myself, I've been a success in
my professional business, and I owe it all to "Think and Grow Rich" or "The Law of Success," I know that that man is
telling the truth because I can tell by the way
the tone of his voice, the look in his eye and the
way he takes hold of my hand. And I appreciate it. Now, if he stood there and rubbed it on, out of proportion of what I deserve, I would know right away that
he's getting ready for a touch of some sort. So you do have to be, you do have to use the discretion. Now, then next and then make
up a list of all the traits of personality of those nearest to you, which you believe need to be
improved by self-discipline. Now you'll have no trouble
at all making up that list. You can find that one very easily. Now I want you to notice a difference, the difference as to the ease
with which you will find that and carry off that
transaction and the one before you were looking into your
own traits of character that needs to be changed. Self examination is a
very difficult thing, did you know that? Very difficult because we, well, why is it difficult? Because we are biased in our favor. We think that whatever we do
no matter how it turns out, if we did it, then it must be right. And if it doesn't turn out right, it was always the other
fellow's fault, not ours. Always. Some of these days I'm going
to have somebody walk in and tell me that I have plenty of students who can do that. Walk in and tell me that they
had been at odds with somebody for a long time only to find
out when they got into this philosophy that the trouble
was not with the other fella, it was with themselves. So they started through
self-discipline to improve themselves and lo and behold, when they got their own house clean, the other fellow's house was also clean. And that's the way it'll work out. It's a styling thing as to how many moats you can see in the other
fellows eye when you're not looking for those in your own eye. I think that everybody before
he condemns anybody should go in before looking glass and say, now look here fellow, before
you start condemning anybody, before you start passing
out gossip about anybody, you look yourself in the
eye and find out if you have clean hands, remember
that passage in the Bible, he that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone. All right, cast the first stone first, before you condemning other people, and when you make a practice of that, you'll get to the point in which you can forgive people for almost anything. Next, what is the most important
form of self discipline, which should be exercised by all who aspire to outstanding success. Now what's the most important
form of self discipline? Is just one, it's outstanding, it has- (muffled speech) Well, of course the
control of your thoughts, the control of your mind. As a matter of fact, there's
nothing else of importance in the world, is there,
except control of your mind. If you control your own
mind, you control everything that you come into contact
with, you really will. You'll never be the
master of circumstances, you'll never be the master of
the space that you occupy in the world until you first
learn to be the master of your own mind, you'll never will. Now, Mr. Gandhi, you've heard
me speak of him many times in biding his time to
gain freedom of India, used these five principles. Definiteness of purpose, he knew what he wanted. Applied faith, he began to
do something about it by talking to his fellow
men, indoctrinating them with the same desire. He didn't do anything vicious. He didn't commit any
acts of mayhem or murder. Then third, by going the extra mile, and forth by forming a mastermind
the likes of which this world probably has never seen before, with at least 200 millions
of his fellow men, all contributing to that
mastermind alliance, the main objects being to
free themselves from India without violence. And fifth, self-discipline
on a scale without parallel in modern times. Now there are the elements
that made Mahatma Gandhi the master of the great British empire. No doubt about it. Self discipline. Where in the world would you
find a man that would stand all of the things that Gandhi
stood, all of the insults, all of the incarcerations
that he went through while standing his ground and
yet not striking back in time, he struck back on his own
ground with his own weapons. And that's a very safe thing to do, select your own battle, if you have to go to battle with somebody, select your own battlegrounds,
select your own weapons, and then if you don't
win it's your own fault. I want you to remember that. I want you to remember that
because you're going to have battle to do in one way or
another throughout life, you're going to have to find campaigns, to put yourself across, to
remove opposition out of your way, you've got to be
smarter than your opposition, or your enemies. And the way to do it is not to
strike back on battlegrounds of their choice, with
weapons or their choice, but to select your own
battleground and your own weapons. Does that mean anything to
you what I'm just saying? I don't know how much it means to you now, but the time will come, when
it will mean something to you. When you've got a problem to solve, somebody is opposing it. You've got to go around somebody. Then you will think of this
lecture that I delivered here tonight wherein I said
choose your own battleground and choose your own weapons, condition yourself first for the battle, by making up your mind
that you're not under any circumstance going to try
to destroy anybody or to do anybody any injury, other than that of defending your own rights. And when you take that attitude, I want to tell you that
you've just as good as won before you ever started. And I don't care who your adversary is, how strong he is, how smart he is, if you use those tactics
you're bound to win. Create a system whereby you
take full possession of your own mind and keep it occupied
with all the things, circumstances and desires of your choice, and strictly off of the
things you do not want. Now, how do you go about
keeping your mind off of things you don't want? Can you tell me that, I wanna
see if you have a clear idea. Why of course, that's
an elementary question. And I didn't mean to insult
your intelligence by asking it, I only want to emphasize
it by having you tell me. And I know that I don't have anything, I was not blessed with
anything that you don't have, and maybe not half as
much as some of you have. My background was certainly
much more difficult than that of most of you, and if I made the grade, I know you can make it, but you have to take possession, you have to be in charge
of your institution, and your enterprise. And you are an institution,
an enterprise each one of you. You'll have to be in charge,
you've got to call the shots, and see that they're carried out, and you have to have self-discipline with which to do it. That's how you go about keeping
your mind off of things you don't want, by occupying
your mind and seeing in your imagination the things that you do want, even though you don't have
physical possession of them, you can always have mental possessions. Don't, you know? And unless you have metal
possession of a thing first, you will never have a
physical possession of them, you can be sure of that. Unless somebody wishes it upon you, or it falls on you on the top of the house when you're walking by accidentally. Anything that you get or acquire
by desire must be created and gotten in your mental attitude first. And you must be very sure about it there, you must see yourself in possession of it, and that takes self discipline. Now your reward for doing this, is mastery of your own
destiny through guidance of infinite intelligence. It's not a marvelous thing
or reward for doing this. For doing what? Taking possession of your own mind. It gives you direct contact
with infinite intelligence, no doubt in the world about it. When I tell you that
there's a person standing, looking over my shoulder and guiding me, I'm particularly telling you the truth, when I meet with obstacles,
I know all I have to do is to remember that he's right there. And if I come to an intersection in life, I don't know which way to
turn, this way or that way, or to go ahead or to go back, all I have to do is to remember
that, that invisible force is there looking over my
shoulder and he'll always point the right direction if
I pay attention to him and have faith in him. How would I know that, that's true do you think? How could I say that, make a statement like that
and know that it's true, only one way and that's
by having practiced it, that's the only way I would know. And I certainly will never
be guilty of telling you anything will happen unless
I have made it happen. And unless I tell you how
you can make it happen. Now, the penalty for not doing it. For not doing what? Not taking possession of your own mind, which is the penalties that
the majority of people pay all the way through the life is this. You will become the victim
of the stray winds of circumstance, which will remain
forever beyond your control. What are the stray winds of circumstance? What am I talking about
there do you think? You'll become the victim
of every influences you come into contact with enemies
and everything else alike, all these things that you
don't want will sway you like a leaf on the bosom of a wind, unless you take possession
of your own mind. That's the penalty that you must pay. Is it a strange thing to contemplate? Is it a profound thing
to recognize the truth, that you have been given
a means by which you can declare and determine
your earthly destiny, and that along with that comes a penalty, a tremendous penalty that
you must pay if you don't embrace that asset and use it. And along with it also
comes this tremendous asset or reward that you do receive
automatically if you accept that asset and use it. What a profound thing it is. If I didn't have any other
evidence of a first cause or a creator, if I didn't
have any other evidence, than what I know about that principle, then I would know there
had to be a first cause, because that's too profound
for any human being to think out. Giving you a great asset
and then penalizing you for not accepting it, rewarding
you if you do accept it, that's the sum and the
substance of what happens when you use the self
discipline with which to take possession of your own mind
as a director to the things you want, nevermind what you want, that's nobody's business except yours. Did you hear what I said there? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] You sure you heard it? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] That's nobody's
business what you want but yours, I don't want
you to forget that. Don't let anybody come along, sell you the idea as to
what you should want. Who's going to tell me what I
want and what I should want? Yes you bet your life, hasn't always been that way, but it is that way today. If there is anybody going
to tell me what I want, I'll do that, and if I allowed
anybody else should tell me, I'd think it was an insult to my creator because he intended that I
should have the last word about this guy here. And believe you me, I take it. I take it all the time. I don't hurt anybody else, and nobody else, I would
do nothing in this world under any circumstances, to
injure anybody or anything, whatever you do to or for another person, you do to or for yourself,
it's an eternal law. Nobody can avoid or evade that law. That's why I wouldn't be
a prosecuting attorney. That's why I was so proud
that I didn't follow my inclination and become a lawyer. I had a long visit where my
brother, Vivian, he's a lawyer. And he practices, he
specializes in divorce suits, especially divorce suits
of very wealthy people. I wanna tell you the penalty he's paying for knowing too much about the bad side of domestic relations. He got so much of that, that
he came to the inclusion all women were bad and he never married. He's never had the pleasure
of a wife like I have because he thinks that all women are bad, because he's judging them
by the ones he knows best, which is a common trait of all of us. We judge people by the
ones we know best don't we? And it's not always
fair either to do that. Certainly not in his case. I'm calling to your attention
some of the vital things in life that you need to deal with. You need to understand
yourself and understand people, and understand how to
adjust yourself with people that are difficult to get along with. You need to know that because
there are a lot of people in this world that are
difficult to get along with, and they are gonna be a lot
as long as you and I live and long after that. So we can't do away with those
people that are difficult to get along with, but we can do something about it by doing something with ourselves. Does that make sense to you all or not? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] I think it does. We're talking about self discipline. We wanna know what it means. First of all, it means
complete control over both the body and the mind, complete control. That doesn't mean changing
your mind or your body, it means controlling it. Breaks the great emotion of sex, gets more people into trouble and all the other emotions combined. And yet it's the most creative, the most profound and
the most divine of all of the emotions. It's not the emotion that
gets people in trouble, it's their lack of controlling
it and directing it, transmuting it, which they
would be readily able to do if they had self-discipline. So it is with other faculties,
the body and the mind. It's not that you have
to change completely, it's just that you have to be the master. You have to be in control. You have to recognize the
things that you must do in order to have sound health and peace of mind. It also means the development
of daily habits by which the mind is kept busy in connection
with the things and the circumstances that one desires
and off the circumstances one does not desire. It means that you will
not accept or submit to the influence of any
circumstance or thing You do not desire, nothing at all. Don't submit to it. You may have to tolerate it. You may have to recognize it's there, but you don't have to submit that, you don't have to let it conquer you. You don't have to admit that
it's stronger than you are. But on the other hand, you assert that you're stronger than it because you're not going to submit to it. And you can give your imagination
a wide range of operation there as to what these things
are that you're going to have to deal with but you're
not gonna submit to it. I'm not gonna mention it
might get too personal. It means that you will build
a three wall protection around yourself so no one
will ever know all about you, or what goes on in your mind. Isn't that an interesting thing? Would you want anybody in this world, anybody to know all about you? - [Student] No. - [Napoleon] Who would, if
you're in your right mind, you wouldn't, would you
want anybody to know all that you think about him? - [Student] No. - [Napoleon] I'm sure you wouldn't. Well, there are a lot of people who just make the mistake of letting
anybody that wants to know, know everything that goes on their mind. All you have to do is start them talking. You know, these people
who start their mouth, so working and then go off and leave him. (students laughing) You know the type I'm talking about, just get them started and
believe me, you find out all about them, good and bad. J Edgar Hoover with whom I
did some professional work on a great many occasions
and still do at times, told me once that the
fellow who is investigating is the best help to him of all of all, because he gets more information
from the guy that he's tracing then from all
other sources combined. I said, why? He says well, because
he talks too damn much. That was his exact reply. Tell me what a man fears, and I will tell you how the master is. The very minute you find
out what anybody fears, you'll know exactly how to control him, if you're foolish enough
to want to control anybody on that basis. I don't wanna control anybody on fear. Not at all. If I control anybody, I wanna control on the basics of what? - [Students] Love. - [Napoleon] Of course, of
course, on no other basis. I wouldn't have any control
over anybody on any other basis than that he wants to give me control of. The average person talks
too much for his own good. But now on the subject of enthusiasm, and I don't know a better time
than talk about enthusiasm than right now, because you
seem to be demonstrating quite a bit of it. First of all, the very first
step in creating enthusiasm is based upon a burning desire. In other words that's the
starting of enthusiasm, and you have no trouble
and as a matter of fact, when you learn how to work
yourself up into a state of a burning desire, you won't need
the rest of the instructions on enthusiasm, because
you've already got some the last word in enthusiasm. When you want something real badly, you make up your mind to get it, you have that burning desire. It steps up your thinking processes, it puts your imagination so
that your imagination goes to work and works on ways and
means where you're getting the thing you desire, that enthusiasm gives you a brighter mind, it makes you more alert to opportunities. You see opportunities
that you never saw before when your mind just steps up
to that state of enthusiasm, to a burning desire
for something definite. And next, there is active enthusiasm and the passive enthusiasm. The active enthusiasm is more effective. Now, what do I mean by active and passive? I'll give you an illustration
of passive enthusiasm. Henry Ford, for instance, was the most lacking in
active enthusiasm of any man I have ever seen. I never heard him laugh,
not once in his life. When he shook hands with you, it's like taking hold
of a piece of cold ham. You did all the shaking, he did nothing, but stick his hand off
and then take it back when you let loose of it. And in this conversation,
there was no magnetism in his voice whatsoever. And there was no evidence of
any shape, form, or fashion, of his demonstrating active enthusiasm. Now, what kind of enthusiasm did he have? Because he must've had some to
have such an upstanding major purpose and to have
achieved it so successfully. It was inward, his enthusiasm
was placed transmuted into his imagination and
into his power of faith, and into his personal initiative. He went ahead on his own initiative. He believed that he could
do whatever he wanted to do. He kept himself alert and
keen with applied faith through his enthusiasm, his passive enthusiasm. Thinking inside of his
own mind what it was he was going to do and all the
joy he'd get out of doing it. I once asked him, this was
long after he had arrived, and had his problems with him. I asked him if he ever wanted anything or anything he couldn't do. He said, no, not at all, and then he qualified himself, not in recent years. See in early days until he
learned how to get or to do whatever you want to do, he couldn't answer in the affirmative. And I said, well, in the, (indistinct) is there's anything that you need or want, that you can't get. He said, that's right. That's correct. Well, I said, how do you go about, how do you know that's true? And how do you go about making
sure that whatever you want to do, you'll know you're going
to do it before you start? He said, well, for a long
time, I've formed the habit of putting my mind on
the can do part of every problem, if I have a problem
there's always something I can do about many things I can't do, but something I can do
and I aspire for it, I can do something. And he said, as I use up
the can do part of it, the no can do simply just vanishes. I get to the river where I
expected to have to have a bridge, I didn't need the bridge
because the river was dry. Well, isn't that a marvelous
thing for a man to make a statement like that. He started in, on his problem
or his objective where he could do something. And he said, if he wanted
to turn out a new model, if he wants to turn out,
increase his production, he immediately put his
mind to work on the plan in which he could do that and
he never paid any attention to the obstacles because
he knew that if his plan was sufficiently strong and definite and backed with the
right kind of the faith, that the opposition that he
might meet with with the melt away, when it came to it, and he said, the astounding thing was, that if you took that attitude
of putting your mind behind the can do part of every problem, the no can't do part, it takes to it's heels and
runs and I'm quoting his words. I could endorse everything
that he has said because that's been my experience. My experience has been that
if you wanna do something, you'll work yourself up into
a state of white enthusiasm, go to work where you stand,
if it's nothing more than drawing a picture in your mind
of the thing you wanna do, and keep drawing that
picture and making it more vivid all the time. That in so far as you
make use of the tools that are available to
you now to move with, will other and better
tools be put in your hands. That's one of the strange things of life, but that's the way it works. Public speakers, teachers
can express enthusiasm by control of the voice. There's no doubt about that. One of my students was riding
down to class this evening and to paid me a very high compliment. She wanted to know, if I
had had any voice training, voice coaching or anything, I said oh, I didn't no,
nothing, not a thing. I said, I had a course in
public speaking a long time ago, but I violate everything
the teacher ever taught me about it. Then now I have my own system. And she said, well, you have
the most marvelous voice, and I often wondered if it hadn't been, if you hadn't had carefully
trained to impart the enthusiasm or the meaning that you
want to impart with it. And I said, no, the answer to that, the answer to this voice
that I have is this, that no matter who hears it, how inexperienced that person may be, how much of a cynic that person may be, the person knows one thing
that when I say something, I believe what I'm saying. I'm sincere about it. And that's the grandest voice control that I know anything about. It's to express enthusiasm in belief, in terms of belief, because
the thing that you're saying, you will know that the
thing that you were saying at the time is the thing
that you ought to say, and that will do something
good for the other fellow, and perhaps for you too. I have seen public speakers
that march prints all over the stage and run their
fingers through their hair and stick their hands
down in their pockets, go through all kinds of personal gestures. All that does to me is
it distracts my attention when the speaker does that. I have trained myself to
stand in one position, I never march around over the stage, and very seldom, I sometimes
spread out my hands, but not very often, but the effect that I
wanna get is first of all, with a sincerity of
what I'm talking about, and then putting my own enthusiasm back in the tone of my voice. And if you learn to do that, you'll have marvelous asset. Then one must feel enthusiasm before being able to express it. I don't see how in the name of heavens, anybody could express
enthusiasm when his heart was breaking, or he's in
distress or he's in trouble of some sort that he couldn't throw off. I did sit in a show once in New York where the star of the show came on and gave a marvelous performance. And she discovered about three
minutes before she came on for her part, that her
father had just dropped dead. And you will never
know, never know at all, she gave it to performance as
perfectly as I could imagine, it could be given, not the
slightest indication in the world that anything had happened, she trained herself to be
an actress once and always, no matter what the circumstances, and if she hadn't trained
herself to do that, she wouldn't have been an actress. An actor who can't fall
into the skeleton shape of his character that
he's trying to portray and feel like that character off the field will not be an actor. He may express the words, the lines that are written for him, but he'll never have the right
impression on an audience unless he lives the thing
he's trying to put across. And they're really great
actors in all walks of life. And they're not all on the stage, there are some of them in private lives. The great actors in life
are all people who can put themselves into the role that
they're trying to portray. They feel it, they believe in it, they have confidence in it , and they have no trouble in
conveying to the other fellow this spirit of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a mighty tonic
for all of the negative influences that get into your mind. If you wanna burn up a negative influence, just turn on all enthusiasm. I'm telling you the two
can stay in the same room at the same time. Just can't do it. You start being enthusiastic
over anything and I fire you to let these doubting culture, these thoughts of fear come into your mind while you are keyed up in
the state of enthusiasm. Once you've practiced the
development of enthusiasm in daily conversations and
learned to turn it on or off at the will, but you start
it now immediately to step up the tone of your
voice when you're conversing with other people, to put
a smile back on your words, inject into it a pleasant
tone, a pleasant feeling. Sometimes you can do that
by toning your voice down, not talking too loud, other than that you can
do it by stepping it up so that they can barely hear you, and don't recognize what you're doing. In other words, learn to inject enthusiasm into your ordinary daily conversations, and you'll have somebody to
practice on in every person you come into contact with. Now these assignments I'm
giving you about practicing on people that you come in, come into contact with
daily is a marvelous thing if you would just stop and
watch what happens to you when you start doing that. Naturally, you start
changing your tone of voice. You'll go out deliberately
intending to make the other fellow smile while you're
talking to him or her and make that person like you. No good to put enthusiasm
into telling another fellow what you think about
him if you don't think something pleasant, 'cause
the more enthusiastic you are, the less he will like you. When you start telling him
another person what you think for his good, well, believe
you me, you better be smiling. Nobody wants anybody to
reprimand him or to overhaul him, or to tell him something for his own good, because he knows very well
that there's a selfish motivation somewhere along the line, or he thinks so at least. Speech in monotones is always
monotonous and boresome. I don't care who it is speaking, if you're not able to get
variety and color and rise and fall in the inflection in your voice, you're going to be monotonous, no matter what you're saying or to whom you're saying it, just suppose that I came
up here and talked in tone that I am now and never
changed my tone of voice, and even though I said exactly
the same thing that I had been saying, I didn't color it my voice, do you think that I would
get such a rousing cheer when I come on? No, of course, not. Of course not. I can come out here and
keep you from going to sleep all by robbing you with a
question that you weren't prepared for, and then letting you answer it. But mostly by getting some
enthusiasm into my tone of voice, raising my voice, letting
it back down again, keeping you jumping and guessing as to what I'm gonna say next. That's a good way to hold an audience, so you won't be like, keep the audience guessing as to what you're going to say next. If you talk in monotones, no
enthusiasm into what you say, the listener will be a way ahead of you, he knows what you're going to
see long before you say it, and whatever it is, he doesn't wanna hear
it in the first place. Enthusiasm, it's a marvelous thing. And then the beautiful part
about enthusiasm is that you can turn it on and off yourself, you don't need to ask anybody about it. Facial expression should
also express enthusiasm with the smile properly directed. I hate to see a person
talking to me at close range with a serious expression on
his face and never changes that seriousness in the least, even though the topic
of conversation is one of a serious nature, I
like to see the person soften his face with a smile. If you watch Mr. Stone when he's speaking, he stops quite often through
his speeches and smiles, and he's got a winning smile. I mean, it's a marvelous smile. The way he softens up his whole face, he just absolutely disarms
anybody that he's talking to, even though he's saying something, the other person doesn't wanna hear. He can disarm the other person
by this change of expression on his face, he's a master at that. I'm not a master at it, but I can do it when I
want to believe you me, because that's a part
of self discipline too, is to be able to look at the other person, let him know by the tone of your voice, what you're saying and
the way you're saying it, and the way you look, that what you say you mean, and that you mean it for his benefit. That's one of the things that
you can do with enthusiasm. Facial expressions, and
start now to observe people who express enthusiasm in
their conversational relations. Also people who do not,
and get a great lesson in attractiveness of personality, just start studying people. If you see a person that
you particularly like, watch that person find
out what it is about him or her that makes you like him or her, and chances are a 1,000 to
one that you find out that whatever that person
says to you or engages, whatever conversation he engages in, it will be on an enthusiastic basis. And you'll never be bored
no matter how much he talks or what he says, because he makes it so attractive that you'll never get tired of it. From definite habits, form
definite habits of which you will learn to express
enthusiasm in your ordinary conversations,
practice before a mirror, talk to yourself if you can't
find anybody that's willing to listen to you, to start out with, you'll be surprised how
interesting it is when you start talking to yourself and say
the things you wanna hear, don't say the things you don't wanna hear when you're looking at
yourself in the glass. You know, I stood before a
mirror for years and years and years, and I told myself
that the day would come, I said, look here Napoleon Hill, you admire Arthur
Brisbane style of writing, that clear, clarity, that succinctly, that definiteness, that
simplicity of language, you admire that, but Napoleon, you're going to not only
catch up with Arthur, but you're gonna run rings around him. And ladies and gentlemen, I did just that, by talking to this fellow and convincing him it could be done. It's about foolish to talk
to yourself in the mirror, it's not foolish at all, that is, if nobody's
starting on the other side, be sure to close the bathroom door, don't leave it open. (student laughing) Don't leave the door open, and don't talk too loudly
if there are people around too close because they'll probably call the psychiatric ward and
want to know if they can't come down until they have
a relative down that's going to stay. Use discrimination and
all of these things, but really and truly, you've got an overhauling
job to do on yourself. We all have at one time
or another at least, you've got to do an overhauling job. I want to attain to a
greater degree of proficiency all the time. My education is never completed, it's wide open all the time. You know, as long as you're
green you continue to grow, but when you get to where you're ripe, then the next step is you become rotten. (students laughing) I wanna be right, I'll never be right with knowledge, never learned the last
word about anything. I'm always learning, learning from people, I get much more from
you than you do from me because I have several
hundred to learn from you and you only have one. Have you ever thought of that? But I wouldn't get anything
from you if I didn't have an open mind, if I weren't
trying to learn from you all the time. When you express enthusiasm
in your daily conversations, observers, profit how others
pick up your enthusiasm and reflect it back to you as their own. You can change the attitude
of anybody that you wanted by simply working yourself up
into a state of enthusiasm, it's a contagious thing
and they pick it right up and then reflect it back
to them as their own. All salesman, all master
salesman understand that art, if they don't understand it,
they are not nice salesman, they're not even the ordinary salesman. If they don't know how
to key up the buyer, with their enthusiasm, no
matter what you're selling, it works just the same as selling yourself as it does in sell services
or commodities or merchandise. You take a good salesman, go
into any store and pick out a salesman that knows his business, and I will tell you right now
that you recognize that that salesman is not only
showing you merchandise, but along with it, he's giving you some
information in a tone of voice that impresses you. The most salesman, you
know, in the stores, they're not salesmen at all, they don't have the first
idea about salesmanship. They are, what will we call them? They're order takers, order takers, not salesmen at all. They don't sell it. I've often heard them say,
well, I sold so much today. I heard a newspaper man, talking to one the man that delivers the
news to him telling him how many papers he'd sold that day. Well, he hadn't sold any papers at all. He had them out and people
came along and bought them and laid their money down. He didn't have anything
to do with selling them, except putting the
merchandise where the people could pick it up and buy. But he thought he was a salesman, thought he was a pretty good one, but you see a lot of people
who wrap up merchandise and places out doing take your money, who thinks they've made a sale, they haven't made anything
because you've done the buying. But a good salesman, you
can't say that about him. You're going to buy a shirt, and before you get out of there, he'll sell you some
underwear and some socks and some tie and a pair of suspenders, no he wouldn't sell me the suspenders because I don't wear them, but he'd sell me a nice new belt, one did that just a day or two ago. I didn't need a belt, but
he showed me a nice one and it just fitted my personality
and I bought it mostly on the personality of the
man who was talking about it. Yes, believe you me, I'm not immune to salesmanship either. Well, when you meet with
any sort of unpleasant circumstance, learn to transmute
it into a pleasant feeling by repeating your major
purpose with great enthusiasm. In other words, when any kind
of an unpleasant circumstance comes across your path,
instead of brooding over that, or allowing it to take
up your time in regret or in frustration, or in fear, just start in and switch
over to thinking about this marvelous thing that you're
going to accomplish down here one, two or three or four
or five years from now, or six months or whatever it is, start thinking about the thing
that you can put enthusiasm back up and use your enthusiasm
for the things you want and not do the things that you've
just lost through the defeat. You know, there are a lot of
people who allow the death in the family the death of the loved one to run them distracted. I've known people lose
their minds over that. When my father passed away in 1939, of course I knew he
was going to pass away, we knew what his condition was, and we knew it was all
the much question of time and I conditioned my mind so
that could not possibly upset me and make some slightest
embrace me emotionally. I got a call from my brother one evening, down at my estate in Florida and I had some rather
distinguished company there talking about publishing business, and they tell us like maid came
in and said that my brother wanted to speak to me on the telephone. I went out of the room and
talked to him for three or four minutes, he told me that
our father had passed away and the funeral will
be that coming Friday. And we chatted a little
while about other things. And I thanked him for calling
me and went back to my company and nobody knew
that anything had happened, not even any members of my
family knew until the next day what had happened. There was no expression of
sorrow or anything of that kind. What was the use? I couldn't save him, he was dead. Why I would agreed myself
to death or something I can't do anything about. So that's hard hearted. No, it's not hard hearted at all, I knew it was going to happen, I adjusted myself to it so
that they could not destroy my confidence or make me afraid. In matters of that kind I seriously, that you have to learn
to give yourself immunity against the being upset emotionally. You know, when you're upset emotionally, you're not quite sane, you don't digest your food, you're not happy. You're not successful,
things go against you when you're in that frame of mind. And I don't want things to go against me. I don't want it to be unhealthy. I want to be successful. I want to be healthy. I want things to come my way, and they all the way
that I can ensure that it's not let anything upset my emotions. I don't think anybody can
love any deeper no more often than I have. But if I had unrequited
love circumstances, and I've had that
circumstance once in life, I could let that upset me
very badly, but I didn't. Why? It's because I have self control, because I won't let anything
destroy my equilibrium, nothing at all. I didn't want my father to die, but as long as he was dead, there was nothing I could do. But there was no use of me dying along too just because he had, and I've seen people do just that, just go ahead and die because
somebody else had died. That's an extreme
illustration I'm giving you, but it's certainly one
that's needed by everybody. We need to learn to adjust
ourselves to the unpleasantness of life without going down under them. And the way to do that is to convert, to divert your attention
away from the unpleasant over to something that is pleasant, then put all of the
enthusiasm you've got back to that other something. You're entitled have
complete control of it. And remember from this day forward, that your duty to yourself
requires that you do something each day to improve your technique for the expression of enthusiasm. No matter what it is. Maybe I have touched upon some
of the things that you can do, but I haven't
touched upon all of them, maybe you and your circumstances, and considering your
relations with other people, you know something that you can do, to step up your enthusiasm
so as to make you more beneficial to some other person. And I wanna tell you something, and this is a very appropriate
thing for the closing of this lecture, if you have a mate, and you can work up a
relationship with that mate, where the mate compliments you
in every place where you're absolutely weak, then you've
got a fortune beyond compare, a fortune that you can't estimate, an assets beyond comparison
with anything else in this world goes that mastermind relationship
between a man and his wife can come out and go around and
master all difficulties that they may come into contact with, they do it by multiplying,
joining their mental attitudes and multiplying their enthusiasm, turning it on each other
to places where they are in need of it and I thank you very much. (applause) I've never known of a
successful person in the upper brackets of success in any calling, that hadn't acquired the
great to potential powers of concentration upon one thing at a time. You've heard people speak
of others intending it to be derogatory by calling them
people with one track minds. Have you ever heard that term? Or anytime anybody calls,
says I have a one track mind, and I wanna thank him for it, because there are a lot of
people that have multiple track minds and they're trying to
run all of them at the same time to make a good job on that end. I have observed as the outstanding
successes are people who have developed higher capacity
to keep their mind fixed on one thing at a time. When you have learned to
concentrate on one thing at a time, you have learned to key
yourself up to where you can see yourself already in possession of the thing is you're concentrating on. The nine basic motives is the starting point
of all concentration. In other words, you don't
concentrate unless you have a motive for doing it. If you want to make a lot
of money for instance, let's say you want to
buy an estate, a farm, and you concentrated on
money in the upper brackets, you'll be surprised how that concentration would change your whole habits, attract to you opportunities
for making money that you never thought of before. I know that's the way
it worked out because some years ago I wanted 1,000 acre estate, which I didn't know at that time, just how much 1,000 acres was, but I was concentrating on a 1,000 acres, and it cost approximately
$250,000 to get the land that I was looking for, and that was a lot more money
than I had at that time. But almost from the very
day that I fixed in my mind, aside the estate that I wanted, opportunities began to open up and develop for me to get that money
and the larger blocks and hunts than I'd ever gotten before. The royalties on my books
commenced to increase, demand for my lectures
commenced to increase, demand for my business
council commenced to increase. So I had just sold myself on
the idea that I had to have the money I was going to get it, I was going to render services for it. When I got the estate, I
didn't get 1,000 acres, I got 600 acres and the
man from whom I bought it, when I told him I wanted 1,000 acres, he said, I have 600, by the way, do you know
how much 600 acres are? I said, well, I have a rough idea. He said, would you mind walking
around this estate with me? (students laughing) We started out bright one morning, with a couple of golf sticks, we took the golf sticks lawn
to knock the rattlesnakes in the head with. And we started around
the outer edge of that, and we walked into the noon tme and we went more than halfway around, up and down over the Catskill mountains, noontime he says, we're
just about halfway around. I said, well, instead of
going all the way around, let's turn and go back. I've seen enough, 600 acres is a planet. (students laughing) Well, I bought the place and
then the Depression came on, 1929, 30, 31. And believe you me, it was tough going, but I had accumulated enough
money to buy the place. I wouldn't have had it if I hadn't concentrated on that idea. Then next to it definiteness of purpose of an obsession of proportion
is the moving spirit back of the motive. There's no use of having a
motive unless you put obsessional desire, or obsessional purpose back at it. What's the difference
between an ordinary purpose or desire and an obsession of desire. What's the difference? (muffled speech) That's right. That's very good. That word intensity is a very good one. It's a very fitting word. In other words to wish for
a thing or to hope for a thing doesn't cause anything to happen. But when you put a burning desire or an obsessional desire
back in the thing, well, it moves you into
action and it attracts you to others and the actual things do you, that you need in order
to fulfill that desire. Oh, so the, how do you go about developing an obsessional desire about anything? By thinking about a lot of things, changing from one thing to another? (muffled speech) You select one thing, you eat it, you sleep it, you drink it, you breath it, you talk about it as long as you can find anybody to listen. If they can't find anybody,
you talk to yourself, that's right, repetition. Keep on telling your subconscious
mind exactly what you want, make it clear, make
it plain, make it definite, and above everything else, let your subconscious mind
know that you expect results, and no fooling. An organized endeavor or
personal initiative is the self starter that starts the
action on concentration. And then applied faith
is this sustaining force that keeps a action going. In other words, without
that applied faith, when the going gets to be hard, that it will no matter what you're doing, you would either slow down or maybe quit. So you can see that you need
to applied faith to keep your action keyed up
through a high degree, even when they're going as hard, and when the results are not coming in as you would like them to come. By the way, did any of you ever hear of anybody starting out to do anything and achieving an outstanding
permanent success, right from the start
without any opposition? Did you ever hear of anybody like that? - [Students] No. - [Napoleon] Well, don't look now. But I want to tip you off to the fact that nobody ever did that and
probably nobody ever will. The going is hard always with everyone, no matter what you're doing, you've got a tremendous amount
of information back at every one of these lessons that
you can concentrate on, but you'll have to concentrate
on every one of these lessons when they come to it. Put everything else aside and
concentrate on that lesson and add to these notes everything
that you can get that's related to this subject. You have to come back to it many times, when I say you have to
concentrate on each lesson, that means that you have to
come back to each lesson many, many times, you have to keep
thinking about each one, but while you're concentrating
on a given lesson, don't let your mind be running
over all the other lessons. Stick right straight to that
one lesson while you're at it. Then the mastermind is
the source of allied power necessary to ensure success. Can you imagine anybody
concentrating on the attainment of something of an
outstanding nature without making use of the master
mind and the brains and the influence and the
education of other people? Did you ever hear of anybody
achieving an outstanding success without the
cooperation of other people? - [Students] No. - [Napoleon] I never have and
I have been around quite a bit in this success thing about
as much as the average, maybe more than the average
and I have never found anybody yet in the upper brackets
of achievement in any line that didn't owe his a success very largely to the friendly, harmonious
cooperation of other people, to the use of other people's brains and sometimes other people's money. You know, they do that
once in a while too. So you need the master mind
alliance in your concentration if you're aiming for
anything above mediocrity, but you can do your own
concentrating on failure, that way you won't need any help on that. You'll need an mastermind on that, but also you'll have a lot
of volunteer help on it. And a lot of good company along. Well, I say a lot of company
let's put it that way. If you just aim to fail, but if you're going to succeed, you've got to follow these regulations as I'm laying them down for you, you can't escape them, you can't neglect any one of them. And then self-discipline is
the watchman that keeps action moving in the right direction even when the going is difficult. And incidentally that's when
you need self discipline the most, is when you
meet with opposition, or when the conditions and
circumstances that you've got to cut through are difficult. That's when you need your
self disciplined to keep your faith going and keep yourself determined that you're not going to quit just because the going is hard. So you couldn't possibly
get along and concentrating without self discipline. Or you could if everything went your way, it'd be no trouble at all. You can concentrate on anything
if everything was going your way and you didn't need to meet these difficult circumstances. Then the creative vision or
imagination is the architect that fashions practical
plans for your action, back of your concentrated. Before you can concentrate intelligently, you've got to have plans. You've got to have an architect. And that architect is your
imagination and the imagination of your mastermind
allies if you have them. What happens when you
start out to do something without a definite or practical plan? (muffled speech) Did you ever hear of anybody
who had a very fine objective or very fine purpose, a very fine idea, but it failed because he
didn't have the right kind of a plan putting it over. Do you ever hear of anybody like that? Have you ever heard of any
other kinds, except that? Is that a common pattern as
a matter of fact for people have ideas but the plans
for carrying them out are not good, not sound. And then the going the extra
mile is the principle that the insures harmonious
cooperation from others. Going the extra mile. You need that in the
business of concentrated. If you're going to get
other people to help you, you got to do something to
put them under obligation. So you've got to give them a motive. Even your mastermind
allies that are in your own organization, they won't
serve as a mastermind allies without a motive. What are some of the motives
incidentally that would get people to join you in a given undertaking? What are some of the motives, what's the most outstanding motive? (muffled speech) The desire for financial gain, of course, in all business and
professional undertakings, I would say the desire for financial gain is the outstanding motive. And if you're going into a business, where the main object is to make money, and if you don't allow
your mastermind allies, or your key men and women are
the people who are helping you most, if you don't allow them
to get sufficient returns, you're not gonna have them very long. There'll be going into
business for themselves. There'll be going over to
your competitors and whatnot. I was very astounded once
to hear Mr. Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie telling me
that he paid Charlie Swab, $75,000 a year salary, on
some years a bonus in addition to the salary of $1 million, did that several years. To me that was a lot of
money then it's still a lot of money now. I was curious about Mr. Carnegie, I want to know why a man
of his great intelligence would pay one, man like
that a bonus of more than 10 times as much as his salary. And I said, Mr. Carnegie
did you have to do that? He I said, no, certainly I didn't. I could let him go and let him go out and go into competition with me. Sure, I didn't have to do it. There's quite a bit of meaning
back at that statement. In other words, you got a good man there that was very valuable to him
and he wanted to keep him. And he knew that the way to keep him, honestly let him know
he'd make more money with Mr. Carnegie's than he would without him. Then the applied golden rule
gives her one moral guidance to the actions of what
one is concentrating. Then accurate thinking say
is one from daydreaming in the creation in the creation of plans. And did you know that the
most of the so-called thinking is nothing in the world with daydreaming, or hoping or wishing? That's what it is. There're a lot of people
who spend a vast majority of their time daydreaming
and hoping and wishing, thinking about things, but never doing, never doing what? (muffled speech) Never taking any actual physical
or mental concrete action in carrying out their plan. I had an experience a long time ago when I was lecturing over in Iowa on this philosophy. After the lecture was over an elderly man, pottered up water up to the stage, he was decrepit and not very strong. And he fished around in his
pocket and came up with a great bundle of papers that
had dog ears on them. And finally he reached around
and amongst those papers and he came out with one
yellow paper and he said, nothing new Mr. Hill
on what you just said, said, I had those ideas 20 years ago. There they are on paper, I had those ideas, sure he did. Millions of other people had them too, but nobody did anything about them. Nothing new in the philosophy, not a thing except the
law of cosmic habit. That's the only new thing about it, and that's strictly speaking is not new. That's Emerson, that's a proper interpretation
on Emerson's essay on compensation, but stated
in terms of people can understand the
first time they read it. There he was, either he
carried those ideas around his pocket and he could have
been the Napoleon Hill instead of me, if he'd
have only gotten Busy back before I started. Some day some smart fellow will come along and he would take up right where I stopped and leave him creating
the philosophy based on what I have done, that will be
far superior perhaps to this. Maybe that person sits
right in this room now. (instrumental music) And then learning from the
defeat insurers one against quitting, when the going is hard. Is it a marvelous thing to
know that in this philosophy you have learned beyond
any question without that, failure and defeat and
adversity needn't stop you, that there's a benefit
of every such experience? What is that benefit tell me. (muffled speech) Can you see any benefit in a
man going through a depression and losing all of his money
right down to the last penny, having to start over again? (muffled speech) Well, if you can't, you
take a good look now because you're looking at
a man who did just that. And it's one of the greatest
blessings that ever came along because I was getting just to
be a kind of a smarty pants, I was making too much money
and making it too easily, and I had to get taken back a notch. I came out fighting and I
have done more good work since that time than I ever did before. Without that experience I
probably would be up there on the Catskill mountains
instead of down here teaching. Sometimes adversity is
a blessing in disguise and oftentimes not so
much disguise as that. If you take the right attitude toward it. You can't be whipped, you
can't be defeated until you have accepted defeat in your own mind. Just to remember that. And remember, that no matter
what the nature of your adversity is, there is always
I've seen them an equivalent benefit if you will concentrate
on the circumstance, and look for all the
good that came out of it, instead of the bad. Don't spend any time brooding
over the things that are lost or gone, or the mistakes
that you have made, except put in some time analyzing them and the learning profiting by them so that you won't make the same mistake twice. And thus it will be seen that
controlled attention involves the blending and the
application of many of the other principles of the philosophy. Persistence should be
the watch word behind all of these principles. Controlled attention is the twin brother of definiteness of purpose. Just think what you could
do as those two principles, definiteness of purpose, knowing exactly what
you want and concentrate everything you've got on
carrying on of that purpose. Do you know what would
happen to your brain and your whole personality and yourself if you would concentrate
on one definite thing? By concentrating on, I
mean, put all of the time that you can possibly spare
when you're not sleeping, and not working directly,
all of the time that you can possibly spare seeing
yourself in possession of the thing that represents
your definiteness of purpose. Seeing yourself in possession of it, seeing yourself building
plans retaining it, working out the first
step that you can take, and then the second and
the the third and so on, concentrating on it day in and day out, and a little while you'll
get to the point at which every way you turn, you'll
find there's something in the way of an opportunity
that will lead you a little bit closer to the thing that represents your definiteness of purpose. When you know what you want
it's astounding how many things you will find a that's related
to exactly what you want. I was living in Florida some years ago and I had a very important
letter coming to the Tampa, Florida post office. I knew the letter came
because I talked on the long distance to the National
Citibank in New York, and I knew that letter was
in the mail that was out now at the post office. I had to have it before 12 o'clock. I called the post master
who was a friend of mine and he said that the mail for your, I lived out in the country 10 miles out. He said that mainly
somewhere between here and Tempa, it's all on the route number one, and I don't know of any
way for you to get that letter before 12 o'clock
except to run the postman down. He said, I'll tell you which
station is where to start, because he's already the
pay station number nine I think it was, he says, you pick him up there, and I'll give you the instructions
how to follow his route. Well, route number one
came over the same highway along the distance that I
use when traveling from Tampa Alto Tampa my home, I
traveled to every day. I didn't know there were
any mail boxes already, but when I began to be
important to me to observe mailboxes I walked in and I never saw so many mailboxes all of my life. Believe me they were looking
to me like every 100 feet, almost there was a mail box, and they were all numbered. And I was looking for the
numbers that the postmaster gave me as the one that he'd probably, where he would probably
be at that very hour. I finally caught up with him and he had, it was on a Monday, and he had
an enormous load of mailings. He said, man, I can't do it, He said, Matt, I can't do it. I don't know where your letter is. He says, I won't know
until I get rid of all. I said, listen, I have
got to have that letter, it's in there, I have got to have it. I said the post master
told me to run you down, and not to take no for an answer to tell you to get out and sort that mail, and let me have that letter. Now, that's what he told
me, if you don't think so, come out over here at this
farm house you can call him. Well, he said it's
unlawful, I can't do that. Well, I said, unlawful or not
I've got to have that letter. That's all there is to it. Now listen fella, be a good sport. No need you and me arguing,
you've got a job to do, and I've got a job to do. Mine is important too and yours important. And it's not gonna hurt
you very much to lose that, man, you can do it in a little while. Oh hell, he said, all right. (students laughing) So he went to work and the
third letter he pick out was mine, third one he didn't, adjust one of those things, and you know what you want, somehow rather than you're
determined to get it, it's not near as difficult
to get as you thought it was. I've often thought of that experience, how indicative that is of
the experiences of people who know what they want and are
successful in getting it, they don't let anything stop them at all, opposition while they just don't pay any attention to opposition. I've often watched Mr. Stone, my distinguished business
associate Mr. Stone and his talk to his salesman. I tell you I get a thrill
every time I hear him speak, because that man doesn't, I don't believe he knows
what the word no means. I think it's long since,
believes it means yes. That's right. Then the results he gets shows that he believes it means yes. He can be the most definite
about the things he wants from anybody I've ever known. And the most definite in
failure and in refusal to accept a turn down. In other words when
opposition gets in his way he just goes right over
them or around them, or he blows them out of the way, but he never lets them stop him. Now that's concentration. That's definiteness of
purpose put into action. Take Henry Ford for instance, everybody knows what his
obsessional definite purpose was, everybody knows it. Most people have been riding a part of his major purpose around everyday
of their lives, driving it. It was a low priced dependable
automobile wasn't it. He didn't allow anybody to talk, there were promoters of whom, I heard promoters approach Mr. Ford, with the opportunities it
seemed to me most glittering. And his reply always
was that he was engaged in the thing that consumed
all of his time and he was not interested in anything outside of his definite major purpose, which was to make and
distributed all over the world, low priced dependable automobiles. And of course sticking to that
job made him fabulously rich. There were hundreds of people
that I saw come into the field and spend more money,
infinitely more money than Mr. Ford had to start off with
them and they went back into the graveyard of fader and I
couldn't find a dozen people in the world today who would
know what their names were. Men who were better
educated than Mr. Ford, better personalities, had
everything that he had and a lot more, except one thing, they didn't stick to the last, they didn't stick to the
one definiteness of purpose the way he did when the going was hard. Mr. Edison, in the field of invention, there was marvelous illustration
of what concentration could do and if you want the truth, I'll tell you that if
Mr. Edison was a genius in any sense it was because
when the going was hard, that was when he turned on the
most steam and didn't quit. Think of a man standing by
and keeping on to 10,000 different failures as he
did when he was working on the infamous electric lamp. 10,000 can you imagine
yourself going through 10,000 failures in the same field
without wondering if you shouldn't have your head examined? I was so astounded when
I heard about that, I saw his log books, they
were two stacks out of them, that high, each book about 250
pages in and on every page, there was a different
plan that he had tried, and it had failed. And I said, Mr. Edison, suppose
that you hadn't found the answer what would you be doing right now? He said, I would be in
my laboratory working instead of up here fooling
away my time with you. (students laughing) And I will say, and he's the
head of the grin when he said, but believe you me he meant
just exactly what he just said. Infinite intelligence will
throw itself on your side when it finds out that you're not
going to quit until it does. If you do not give up
when the going as hard, infinite intelligence will
throw itself on your side. Remember that's when the going is hard, it's either you have your faith tested, you have your initiative tested, you have your enthusiasm tested, you have your endurance tested. And when nature finds out
that you can stand the test and that you're not going
to take no for an answer, it says, all right,
you passed, come on in, you're over, you're in. I think that nature or
infinite intelligence or God, or whatever you choose to call it, I think that first cause
likes to convey information to people in simple terms and
things they can understand. And surely this will philosophy
comes within that category. It wasn't send those
high school boy or girl, to the dictionary or encyclopedia, you can read it or you can hear about it, you can understand it, and your own intelligence
tells you the moment you come across one of these principles
that is bound to be sound. You just know that it is,
you don't need any proof. You can see that it is. And it wouldn't have been in
existence today if I hadn't concentrated through 20 odd
years of adversity and defeat. So you see it does pay to
concentrate and it does my own experience
corroborates what I said, that if you stand by
when the going is hard and failed in it, infinite intelligence will throw itself on your side. I don't think that would be
true in the case like that of Hitler's, no doubt he had
definiteness of purpose, no doubt he had an obsessional desire, but what was wrong was
his definiteness purpose? (muffled speech) That is right, it ran counter to the plans
of infinite intelligence, to the laws of nature, to
the laws of right and wrong. And you may be sure that whatever
you're doing will come to nod or come to failure
and you come to grief, if it works on hardship or on injustice upon a single individual. What you must do, what
you do if you hope to have infinite intelligence
throw itself on your side, is to be right. And you can only be right
when everything that you do, benefits everybody who it
affects including yourself. Well then take Christ's
whole life was devoted to concentration upon developing a system of living for the brotherhood of man. He didn't fare too well while he lived, but on the other hand, he must've been doing the right
thing because while he was doing, even though he paased on, he only had 12 people to start out with. And that's why I believe
that what he was doing, what he was preaching must've been right, because if it hadn't been right, it would have been destroyed
and gone along before this, because there is something in nature, or in the infinite intelligence, which brings forth with every evil, the virus of its own destruction. Then that's, there's no exception to that. Every evil, everything
that's not in conjunction with the overall plan of nature, of the natural laws of
the universe brings with the circumstance itself the
virus of its own destruction. Take William Wrigley for instance, Mr. Wrigley, by the
way, William Wrigley jr. Was the first man that ever paid me money for teaching him this philosophy. My first $100 that I ever made
came from William Wrigley, the stenographer's friend. (students laughing) Well, they got that mandate
on a five, seven package of chewing gum. I'd never ride down Michigan Boulevard. I never see that building
down there lighted, on the river light at night
at that white building, because I don't think of
what concentration can do even in connection with
such a thing as a package of $0.05 package of chewing gum. Signers of the declaration
of independence, and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, some Thomas Jefferson, concentration was to give
personal liberties to all of the American people and eventually to the people of the world. It may well be that the
freedom for mankind, this is the cradle for the birth of the freedom of mankind itself, because I know of no other
nation on the face of this earth that is concentrating upon
the freedom of the individual as we are doing here in the United States. And I know no other philosophy, no other people engage
in any other studies whose objective is to free so many people as those who are studying this philosophy. Well, we're on a marvelous lesson tonight. The subjects of accurate thinking. In all the things that
everybody talks about and hardly anybody ever does. (students laughing) Accurate thinking. What a marvelous thing it is
to be able to analyze facts, think accurately, make
decisions based upon accurate thinking rather
than upon emotional feelings. The majority of the opinions
of decisions that you make, and I, and everybody else for that matter, are based upon the things that we desire or things that we feel not upon the facts necessarily at all. And when it comes to a
showdown between your emotional feelings, the
things you feel like doing, and the things that your head
tells you, you ought to do, which one do you think wins the most? - [Students] Feeling. - [Napoleon] What's the
matter with the head that it doesn't get a better chance. Do you suppose? Why isn't it consulted more? - [Student] People don't think. (indistinct) - [Napoleon] Very good, very good. The sparks are flying I can see that. Someone has said that
most people do not think, they just think that they think, and I think that just about covers it. Now, there are certain
simple rules and regulations that you can apply and this
lesson covers everyone of them that will help you avoid the mistakes, the common mistakes of
inaccurate thinking, that is of snap judgments and being pushed around by your emotions. You know that the truth of the matter is that your emotions are
not reliable at all. Take the emotion of love tor instance, it's the greatest and grandness
of all of the emotions and yet the most dangerous, by the same token, and
the perhaps more trouble, more difficult in human
relationship grows out of a misunderstanding of the emotion of love and for all other sources combined. Well, let's begin at the
beginning on the accurate thinking and see just what it is. First of all, there are
two kinds of thinking, based upon three major
fundamentals as follows, inductive reasoning, based
on assumption of unknown facts or hypotheses, then
there's deductive reasoning, based on known facts or what
is believed to be known facts. Then there's logic that is
guidance by past experience, similar to those under consideration. Now those are the three
types of thinking that we do. And which one do you say that
we put into operation most? - [Student] Inductive reasoning. - [Napoleon] Inductive reasoning, or deductive reasoning or logic? (muffled speech) Do you think, oh, no. (muffled speech) Now inductive reasoning
is based on assumption of unknown facts or hypotheses. You just assume you don't know the facts, but you assume that they
exist and you create them, and base your judgment
on what you have created. Now, when you do that, you
must keep your fingers crossed and be ready to change your
decision readily because your reasoning may not
to prove to be accurate, because you're basing
it upon assumed facts, but deductive reasoning
is based on known facts or what it believes to be known facts. Now that's why you have
all those hacks before you, and you can deduce from those facts, certain things that you ought to do to for your benefit, or to
carry out your desires. And that's supposed to
be the type of reasoning or thinking that the
majority of people engage in, only they don't do a very good job of it. Now, there are two major
steps in accurate thinking and they are, first of all,
separate fact from fiction or hearsay evidence. That's the first step. Before you do any thinking at all, you must find out whether
you're dealing with facts or fiction, real evidence
or hearsay evidence. And if you're dealing with
fiction or hearsay evidence, it behoove you to be exceptionally
careful to keep an open mind and not to reach a
final decision until you have examined those facts very carefully. And second, separate
facts into two classes, important and unimportant. Now what is unimportant facts. You will be surprised when I
tell you that the vast majority of facts that we deal with, I'm talking about facts,
not of hearsay evidence, not hypotheses, the vast number
of facts that the majority of us deal with day in day out
are relatively unimportant. Why? Well, let's see what an important fact is and then you'll know why. And important fact may
be assumed to be any fact that can be used to
advantage in the attainment of one's major purpose
or any subordinate desire leading toward the attainment
of one's major purpose. That's what's what an important fact is. And I wouldn't miss it very
much I suspect if I said that the vast majority of
people spend more time on irrelevant facts that
have nothing whatsoever to do with their advancement
than they do on facts that would be a benefit to them. Curiosity people, people
that medal in other people's affairs, gossipers, and
all that sort of thing. Putting in a lot of time
thinking and talking about other people's affairs, dealing with petty small talk and petty facts. In other words, dealing
with unimportant facts. If you doubt what I've just said is true, take inventory of the
facts that you deal with for one whole day and just
sum up at the end of the day and see how many really important facts you've been dealing with. It'd be a better to do this on a Sunday, on an off day, when you're
away from your occupation or your business, because
that's where an idle mind usually goes to work on unimportant facts. Now opinions are usually
without value because they are based on bias, prejudice,
intolerance, guesswork, or hearsay evidence. It's surprising to take
inventory and find out how many people have, how many opinions on how many
things that have no basis whatsoever, except the way they feel, or what somebody said to them, or what newspaper they read or what influence they've come under. Most of our opinions come
as a result of influences that we don't have any control over. Free advice volunteered by
a friends and acquaintances, is usually not worthy of consideration. why? (muffled speech) Not based upon facts on too
much small talk mixed up in it. That last part of the sentence there is not meant to be funny. Free advice volunteered by
friends or acquaintances is usually not worthy of consideration. What kind of advice is
the most desirable advice when you need advice? How do you go about getting it? And what kind of advice
would you recommend? Someone who's a specialist
who's known to be a specialist in connection with the problem at hand, and go and pay him for his services, don't go after any for free advice. And speaking of free advice, I just wanted to tell you
what happened to a student of mine, a friend of mine
first, and then a student, I was in California. For three years he used
to come over to my house every weekend and spend
three or four hours, for which I ordinarily
would get $50 an hour, but didn't get anything from him because he was a friend and acquaintance. So he'd come over there
to get three or four hours of free counsel and
well, I gave it to him, I gave it to him every time he came, but he didn't hear a
single word that I said, not a word. That went on for three years. And finally, he came over, finally, he came over
one afternoon and I said, now look here, Elmer, I've been giving you three
council for three years and you haven't heard a darn
thing although darn is not the word I used. You haven't heard a darn
thing I've been saying, now you never get any value
off of this counsel that I'm giving until you start paying for it. Now, why don't you just go ahead, we're starting a master course right away. Why don't you go ahead
and join that course, like everybody else, and then you commit to getting some value. He took out his checkbook
and gave me a check for the master course and entered the
course and went through it. And I wanna tell you that
his business affairs began to thrive from that moment on, I have never seen a man
grow and develop so fast. After he paid a substantial
sum for some counsel he commenced listening to it
and putting it into action. And that's human nature I'm talking about, I'm telling you this for a fact, free advice it's just
about worthwhile cost, everything in this world is
always just about what it cost. Love and friendship. What are loving friendships worth? - [Student] A lot. - [Napoleon] Do they have any price? (muffled speech) Now you try and get love
and friendship without paying the price and see how far you go. Those are two things that you
can only get by giving them. You can only get the real
McCoy by giving the real McCoy, that's the only way you can get them. And if you try to MOOC, get friendship and love
without giving it in return, your source of supply will soon play out. Accurate thinkers permit no one to do their thinking for them. Now, what do you think about that? How many people are there that
permit to circumstances and influences and radio and
television and newspapers and other people and relatives to
do their thinking for them? How many do you think, what percentage would you say
of the people permit that? - [Students] 99, 97%. - [Napoleon] 97, 99 and somebody said 100. Well, it's not quite that bad, not quite. - [Students] 99, 98. - [Napoleon] But I will
tell you the percentages are way up there, no fooling. Allowing other people do
the thinking for them. If I have one asset that I
feel proudest of and I do, I have one that I see really proud of, and I bet you'd would
never guess what it is. (muffled speech) Now what is it? (muffled speech) I have an asset that I'm very
proud of and has nothing to do with money and our bank
accounts and our bonds or stocks or anything of that kind, it's something more precious than that. (muffled speech) I have learned to hear all evidence, get all of the facts I can
from all of the sources and then put them together in
my own way and have the last word in making my own thinking. That doesn't mean that I'm a know it all, or that I am a doubting Thomas
or that I don't seek counsel. I certainly do seek counsel, but when I have gotten my counsel, I determine how much of it I'll accept and how much of it I will reject. Certainly when I make a decision, nobody could ever say
that it isn't a decision from Napoleon Hill, or
it might be a decision based upon a mistake,
it might be an error, it's still mine. I did it and nobody influenced me. That doesn't mean that I'm hardhearted, my friends have no influence on me, they do, certainly they do. But I determine how much
influence they have on me and what's the reaction I
will have to their influence. Certainly I would never
permit a friend to have such influence on me as to cause
me to damage some other person just because that friend
wanted to damage them. That's been tried many times. I would never put him into that. Doing your own thinking,
I want to tell you that I think the angels in heaven
cry out when they discover a man or a woman that does
his or her own thinking, and doesn't allow the relatives
and friends and enemies and other people to discourage
business of accurate thinking. The reason I'm emphasizing this, ladies and gentlemen is
because the majority of people never do take possession
of their own minds, their most valuable
asset that anybody has, the only thing that the
creator gave you that you have complete control over, and the
one thing that you generally don't ever discover and use, but you allow other
people to kick it around like a football. I'm not talking to you, you
understand that of course. (students laughing) I'm talking about they. The they who are not here in this class. I don't know why it is that you know, our educational system or
somewhere in our system of teaching or writing, I don't know why it is that before now, people haven't been
informed that they have the greatest assets in the world, asset sufficient unto all of their needs, and that assets consist in
their privilege of using their own mind and thinking
their own thoughts, and directing those own
thoughts to whatever objective they choose and yet they don't do it. Why? Why, tell me why? - [Student] Too lazy. - [Napoleon] Too lazy said someone. (muffled speech) That's the idea, they don't
know that they have it, there has not been the
proper system of education. And I want to tell you that
wherever this philosophy touches, wherever it begins to touch, you see people blossom out as they never blossomed out before. It makes a difference because
they begin to find out that they have a mind that
they can use that mind and that they can make do
whatever they wanted to do. I don't say that they all
are running to immediately take possession of their own mind, but they'd rather kind
of sneak in or slip in, a little at the time, but eventually their life begin to change. And the reason they change is
as they discover this great mind power and start using it. Not saying before my opinions
based upon newspaper reports. I see but the papers is a
preparatory remarks usually blinds the speaker as this snap judgment thinker. I see with the papers right
here tell, or they say, how often have you heard those terms? They say, so and so, when I hear anybody start off of that. Mentally, I pull out my
earmuffs and don't hear a dog gone thing that
they say because I know it's not worth hearing. When anybody starts you
to give me information and identifies the source by saying, I see in the papers or
they see or I hear too, I don't pay any attention
to what is said whatsoever. Not the slighted attention. Not that what they are
saying might not be accurate, but then I know that the
source is a fault and therefore the changes are that the
statement is faulty also. The scandal mongers and the
gossipers are not the reliable sources from which to
procure fact on any subject whatsoever. Why is that true? (muffled speech) Well, no, they're not reliable, and also they're biased. Did you know that when you
hear anybody speak in a derogatory way of anybody else, whether you know the person
or either one of the persons or not, the very fact that one
person speaks in a derogatory way of another person put
you on guard and gives you the responsibility of
studying and analyzing very closely everything that's said, because you know, you're
listening to a biased person. You know, that. (upbeat music) I think the human brain
is a wonderful thing, you know the creator, I just
marvel at how smart he was in creating a human being, giving a human being all of the equipment, and all of the machinery
and all of the mechanism with which to detect lies from false, falsehood from truth. There is ever something
present in the faucet that does notify the listener of it. It's there you can tell
it, you can feel it. And the same thing by the same token, when someone is speaking the truth. The most famous actor in the
world, couldn't deceive you if you would use your innate intelligence, in reference to statements that are made. Scandal mongers. Now by the same token when
you hear someone overpraised by a doting or loving friend, what about that? (muffled speech) Well, now that is that's
a compliment and it's less dangerous to depend upon that. But certainly if you
want the accurate facts, then you will study the remarks
of a complimentary nature just as closely as you've
studied the evidence. For instance if I send
somebody to you for a job and I sent a long with a letter, a very, very laudatory letter, or get you on the telephone
and give you a sales pitch about how, what a marvelous
person this person is. If you are an accurate thinker, you're going to know that I'm
rubbing it on pretty thick and you better be very careful
how much of it you accept, that you better do a little
outside investigating. Is that right? Oh, please understand
I'm not trying to make doubting Thomas's out of you. I'm not trying to make scenics out of you, but I am trying to bring to your attention the necessity of using this
God given brain that you have with which to seek active language, with which to search for the facts, albeit those, when you find the facts, they may not be what you're looking for, but there they are, there
are a lot of people you know, who fool themselves and
there's no worst person, no worse fooling in this
world than the fooling that one does for himself. I told you of a lot of
Chinese proverb which says, a man fool me once, shame on the man, fool me twice shame on me. People just never seem to think that, to do a little accurate thinking, a little investigating, you know. And you can't imagine that you
would think that bankers for instance, would be so true
that the confidence man couldn't come in and take them. And I heard one of the most
outstanding confidence men in the world, Barney Birch, I don't know what's ever happened to him he used to operate here in Chicago. I got acquainted with him
once and interviewed him on several occasions. And I asked him what type of
members are easiest victims, he said bankers, because they
think they're so damn smart. (students laughing) You know, I'm quoting
him, I'm quoting him, that's what he said. Well, anyhow, you're not
paying too much attention to scandal mongers and gossipers. Wishes often furthers to facts, and most people have a bad
habit of assuming facts to harmonize their desires. Did you know that? Therefore you have to
look in the looking glass when you are searching
for this business of locating the person who
can do accurate thinking. And you've got to be, put
yourself under suspicion to happen for. Because if you wish they need to be true, oftentimes you will assume that it is true and you will act as if it were. If you love a person, you
will overlook his faults, you'll never see his faults. If you love him a great deal, but really, and truly, we
do need to watch ourselves in connection with those
who we admire most, until they have proved
themselves entirely, because I have admired a great
many people who turned out to be very dangerous,
very dangerous, indeed. As matter of fact, I think most of my troubles
back in my old days came from trusting people too much. And let them use my name. Sometimes they wouldn't use it wisely. That's happened five or
six times in my life, because I trusted the people. Why did I trust them? Because I knew them and
they were nice people, and they said, and did
the things that I like. Be careful of the fellow that says, and does the things you like, because you're going
to overlook his faults. Don't be too hard on the
minor steps on your guns and causes you to re-examine yourself. Don't be too hard on him
because he may be the most important friend you've
ever had in your life. The person who maybe irritates you, but causes you to examine
yourself carefully. We all like to meet and associate
with people who agree with us, that's human nature. But oftentimes the people,
some people that you associate with and who agree with you and
who are very nice and lovely and come to the point where
they can take advantage of you and they do. Information is abundant
and most of it is free, but facts have an illusive
habit and generally there is a price attached to them. Certainly the price is painstaking labor and examining them for accuracy. That's the least of the price that you have to pay for facts. And this question, how do you know, is the favorite
question of the thinker. When a thinker has statement
that he can't accept, immediately he says to the speaker, how do you know, what is
your source of information? This business of asking
people to identify their source of knowledge and
well, oftentimes if you have the slightest doubt, if you do that, you put the person right out on a limb, he won't be able to do it. All right, if you ask him how he knows, he'll tell you, well, I believe so. What led you to believe
anything unless you based upon something, unless you can
give some background for it. I believe there's a God. A lot of people do. But I bet you, there are
a lot of people who say that they believe in the
God who couldn't give you the slightest evidence of him if you backed them into a corner. I can give you evidence. When I say that, I believe in a God. And you say, how do you know? I can give you all of the evidence, I don't have so much evidence
in connection with anything else in this world as I do in connection with the existence of a creator. Because we all do and
this is how this universe couldn't go on and on and on elms and elms of time
adding for nights without a fresh cause without a plan back, you know that's absolutely true. And yet there are a lot of
people you want to take to prove the presence of God and
the devious ways that the in my book of rules
wouldn't be evidence at all. Anything that exists, including God, is capable of proof and
why there is no such proof available it is safe to
assume that nothing exists. I wouldn't know a factor
available for the basis of an opinion or a judgment or a plan turn to them to
a logic for guidance. No one has ever seen God, but logic says that he exists
and it says that he has to exist and we wouldn't be here. We couldn't be here without a first cause, a higher intelligence in ourselves. We couldn't be here. That thing called logic,
it's a wonderful thing. There are times when you have a hunch, you have a feeling that
certain things are true or certain things are not true. And you better be careful
to pay high respect to that hunch that you feel
because that's probably infinite intelligence
trying to break through the outer shell and let
you use a little logic. If one of you got up and said, my definite major aim
is to make $1 million this coming year. Well, what do you say? What
would I say if you did that? What will be the question,
first question I would ask you, do you think? - [Students] How. - [Napoleon] Yeah, how,
how are you gonna do it? I want to hear your plan. And then after I hear your plan, what am I gonna do about it, am I going to accept it or reject it? What am I going to do about it? (muffled speech) I am going to weigh you first of all, your ability to get $1
million and to find out what you're going to give for it, and then my logic will
tell me whether or not your plan for doing it is probable and workable and practical. Now that doesn't take an awful
lot of intelligent thinking, but it's a vitally important thing to do. I go over that, analyze your plan, I'd analyze you, I'd analyze your capabilities, I'd analyze your past experience,
your past achievements. I'd analyze the people that
you're going to help get to help you make that $1 million. And when we got through analyzing, I would be able to tell you that, well, probably you can do it, or I'd be able to find
out three of it probably it'll take longer than
the year that you said maybe it'll take two
years, maybe take three. And then again, probably I
might tell you that you wouldn't be able to do it at all. If my reasoning taught me that
that was what that was and what I'd give it to me just that way. I've had some of my students
some of them sitting right here in this room, come out and
put propositions in before me, which I had to turn down and tell him, just absolutely forget about it because they're wasting their time. Now that's the way an
accurate thinker proceeds. He doesn't allow his
emotions run away with him. If I allow my emotions
to do my thinking for me, I'll have anything is one of
my students undertook to do, I tell him he can do it. Now that leads up to this famous motto or epigram that you've
seen quoted a lot of times, you've heard it in my lessons, whatever your mind can
conceive and believe, your mind can achieve. I don't want anybody to misread
that statement this way, by saying, reading into
it, whatever your mind can conceive and believe
your mind will achieve. I said it can achieve, do you get the line of
difference there between the two? It can, but I don't know that it will, that's that's up to you,
only you and all of that. The extent to which you use your own mind, the extent to which you
intensify your faith, the soundness of your
judgments and your plans, all of these factors entering
into how well you carry out that atheism or that epigram, whatever your mind can
conceive and believe, your mind can achieve. It's a massive test to be
made and separated in facts, from information. Let's see how we go about it. First of all, it's
scrutinized with unusual care, everything you read the
newspapers or hear over the radio, and part of the habit of
never accepting any statement as a fact merely because
you read it or heard it expressed by someone. Statements bearing some
proportion of fact often are are intentionally or careless
colored to give them an erroneous meaning, a half
truth in other words, someone said it's more dangerous
than an out and out lie. It's more dangerous because
that has truth and is liable to deceive somebody who knows it, who understands half of it and thinks the whole of it is true. Scrutinize carefully
everything you read in books, regardless of who wrote them, and never accept the works of any writer without asking the following questions and satisfying yourself as to the answers, and that would applied to
lectures or statements or speeches or conversations
or anything else. These rules that I'm going to give you. First of all is the writer
a recognized authority on the subject cover to
the writer or the speaker or the teacher or the one
that's making the statement, is he recognized as authority
on the subject on which he's speaking or writing. That's the first question that you ask. Next, did the writer or the
speaker have an ulterior or a self interest motive other than that of imparting accurate information. You're the motive that
prompts a man to write a book or make a speech, or to
make a statement in public, or in private conversation,
the motive back of it is very important. And if you can get out of
man's motive when he's talking, you can tell pretty well how critical he is and what he's saying, has the right or property interest, or other interests in the subject on which he writes or speaks. You know, when you find
out what a man's motive is, when whatever he's doing, if
you can locate his motive in doing it, it'll be impossible
for him to fool you in the least, because you'll
be able to smell him out. And this is the writer, a person of sound
judgment and not a fanatic on the subject on which he writes. I have seen a lot of
people who were overzealous about to the point of fanaticism. If you wanted to judge me, for instance, you wouldn't judge me on account
of the kind of tie I wear, the kind of a suit I wear,
or how I cut my hair. I used to cut my hair. How well I speak, how poorly I speak, you wouldn't judge me
by any of those things. You would judge me by how
much influence I'm having for good or evil on people. That's the way you would judge me. That's the way you would
judge anybody else. You might not like a man's
brand of religion or politics, but if he's, if he's doing
a good job in his field and helping a lot of
people and doing no damage, nevermind about his brand, don't condemn him if he's doing
more good than he is harm, preponderantly more good than harm. Before accepting as facts
statements by others, ascertain the motive, which
prompted the statements. Ascertain also the writer's
reputation for truth and veracity, and scrutinize
with unusual care, all statements made by people
who have strong motives or objectives they desire to
attain through their statements and be equally careful
about accepting as facts the statements of overzealous
people who have the habit of allowing their imaginations to run wild. Learn to be cautious and do
you use your own judgment no matter who is trying to influence you, use your own judge within final analysis. And what do you do if you
can't trust your own judgment? (muffled speech) Is there an answer in
this philosophy for that? There certainly is. There are certainly most
definitely is an answer. And you know, there are a lot
of times when an individual can trust his own judgment, because he doesn't know enough
about the circumstances that he's faced with. He's got to turn to somebody
with a broader experience or a different education or
a keener mind for analysis. He has got to do that. For instance, can you
imagine a business succeeding and who has made all made
up of master salesman. Can you imagine that, did you
ever know of such a business? I have, you think that's
wonderful master salesman, they'll go out and bring
in all the business in the world. Well, sure they do. And then spend all the
money in the world doing it. You need a wet blanket
man in every organization, and you need a hatchet man. A man who will cut through the
red tape and everything else that gets in his way
and let the chips fall wherever they may. I wouldn't want to be a hatchet man, I wouldn't want to be a wet blanket man, but certainly I'd want those
two in my organization. If my operation was very extensive. In seeking facts from others, do not disclose to them what
facts you expect to find. Now, why is that statement made? (muffled speech) If I say to you, by the way, you used to employ John
Brown and he's applied to me for a position, I think
he's a wonderful man. What do you think? Well, if he has any faults, I'll certainly not get them
from that kind of a question, will I? If I really wanted to
find out about John Brown, who used to work for you, how would I go about
getting the information? (muffled speech) Well, I wouldn't go about
getting it from you at all in the first place. I'd have a commercial credit
come and get an unbiased report on from you. And you probably give out the
facts to the credit rating company that you wouldn't give
out to me or to anybody else. It's surprising how much
information you can get if you got to know the
right commercial agencies through which to get it. But oftentimes when you go
direct for information about a man, unless it's very
friendly and favorable, the chances are you
won't get the real facts. You'll get a vanished or a
watered down set of facts. Don't you know? If you're going to, if you ask him a question
and you gave him the slight idea as to what you
expect the answer to be, or the most people are lazy anyway, they don't wanna go to too
much trouble in explaining, well, they'll just to give
you the answers they know you want, and you're taking
them and you go on with it and then fall down on it later on. Science is the art of organizing
and classifying facts. That's what science means, when you wish to make sure
you are dealing with facts, seek scientific sources
further testing where possible. A man of science have neither
the reason or the inclination to modify or to change
facts in order misrepresent. Isn't not an astounding thing. They just don't have the reason. Well, if they did, if
they had that inclination, they would not be scientists, would they? They'd be pseudo scientists or fakes. And there are a lot of pseudo
scientists and fakes in this world believe you me who
assumed to know things that they don't know. Your emotions are not always
reliable as a matter of fact, most of the time they're not reliable. And before being influenced
too far by your feelings, give your head a chance to pass
judgment on the business at hand, the head is more
dependable than the heart, but what makes it good combination? (muffled speech) Balancing them. And that's the idea just balancing them so that both of them have
an equal say so to speak and a comfort they're coming
up with the right answer if you do that. The person who forgets this
generally regrets his neglect. Now these are some of the major
enemies of sound thinking, emotion of love, for instance, that's right up at the head of the lips. You'd think, well, how in
the world could the emotion of love, interfere with anybody's thing? Yeah, yeah. If you said that, I just know right away you haven't had very
many love experiences. Have you ever had an
experience with love at all, you know, very well how dangerous it is, like playing around TMT
with a match in your hand, when it tarts exploding,
it doesn't give any notice. Then hatred and anger and
jealousy and fear and revenge and greed and vanity and
egotism and the desire for something for nothing
and procrastination, all of these are enemies of thinking. You have to be on the
lookout for them constantly. And to be sure that you're free of them, provided that the thinking
at hand is of importance to you and maybe your whole
future destiny depends upon your thinking accurately. And is it the fact that it does. Does is your future destiny
depends very largely on your accuracy or your lack
of it and your thinking? Of course, if that were not true, then what would be the use of
the creator having given you complete control over your own mind? what good would it be? The answer is that, that
mind is sufficient unto all of your needs, absolutely. At least on this lifespan,
I don't know on the, preceding plane where you came from, or on the succeeding plane
where you're going to, I don't know about those planes because I don't remember where I came
from and I don't yet know where I'm going. I wish I did. But I know a great deal
about where I am not, and I found out a a great
deal about how to influence my addition to here and also
that I get a lot of pleasure out of it so I get joy, so I can give joy, so I make myself useful and I justify my having passed this way. Why can I say that? Because I have discovered
how to manipulate my own mind and keep it under control, make it, do the things I wanted to do, throw off the circumstances I don't want and accept the ones that I do
want and if I don't find the circumstances I want, what do I do? (muffled speech) Create them. Of course create them, that's
what definiteness of purpose and imagination involve. Your mind should be an
eternal question mark. Question everything and everyone
until you satisfy yourself that you are dealing with facts, do this quietly in the
silence of your own mind and avoid being known
as a doubting Thomas, don't come out on the
question people orally, that's not going to get you anywhere. But question them silently. And furthermore, if you're
too outspoken and too oral about your questioning of people, it puts them on notice and
they cover up and you don't get the information you want. Quietly go about seeking for information, then doing some accurate thinking. You probably will come up with. Be a good listener, but
also be an accurate thinker as you listen. Which is most profitable, to be a good speaker or a good listener? - [Students] Good listener. - [Napoleon] Why. (muffled speech) I don't know of any virtue or
any quality that would be that will help an individual to
get along in this world, better than to be an effective
enthusiastic speaker. I just don't know of any other qualities that will excel at it. And yet, I would follow that
statement immediately by saying that it's far more profitable
to anybody to be a good listener an analytical listener than it is to be a good speaker. Let your mind be an
internal question mark. Now I don't mean by that, that you should become a
cynic or a doubting Thomas, but I mean, no matter
who you're dealing with, deal with them on the basis
of thinking accurately of every relationship that you have. You'll get a lot of
satisfaction out of that. You'll also be more successful. And if you're tactful, as
you go along and diplomatic, you'll have a lot more of
substantial friends and you have by the old method of snap judgment. Mostly your friends, if you're an accurate thinker, mostly your friends will
be friends worth having, believe you me they will. Your thinking habits are other
results of social heredity and physical heredity. Watch both of these sources carefully, but particularly social heredity. Now, physical heredity
through physical heredity, you get everything that
you are physically, the stature of your body as a
shape, texture of your skin, color of your eyes and hair, you are the sum total of
all of your ancestors back farther than you can
ever remember or think. And you inherited a little
bit of their good qualities and a little of their bad, and there's nothing you can do about that. That's static, it's fixed at birth. But by aspiring the most
important part of what you are, is where he's out of your
social heredity that is your environmental influences, the
things that you have allowed to go into your mind, and yet you've accepted as
a part of your character. That's the important thing. Down at the bottom, your
conscience was given to you as a guide when all the other
sources of knowledge and facts have been exhausted, be carefully use it as a guide
and not as a conspirator. Do you know, a lot of people
who use their conscious as a conspirator instead of a guide? In other words, they sell
their conscious on the idea and what they're doing is right, that the conscious
falls in line eventually and becomes the conspirator. Now, if you sincerely
wish to think accurate, there's a price that you
must pay for usability, a price, which is not measurable in money. And first you must learn to
examine carefully all of your emotional feelings by submitting them to your sense of reason. That's step number one,
in accurate thinking. In other words, the things
that you like to do best are the things that you
should examine most and first to make sure that if they
lead you to the attainment of some objects that you want
that object, that you get it. The point I'm making is that
the thing that you set your heart upon, be careful
about the thing that you set your heart upon
the is when you get it, sometimes you find out it's
not what you wanted at all. I could multiply that
by 1,000 illustrations, a man who paid too much for what they got, who wanted something too badly, who tried to get too much of
it did get too much of it, but didn't get peace of mind
and balancing of their lives along with it. I think the saddest thing that
ever came out of my research and building this philosophy
was the things that I learned about the men, the wealthy
man that collaborated in the building this philosophy, the fact that they didn't get success along with their money. To me, a sad thing indeed, they didn't get success because
they became too obsessed with the importance of money and power, and the power that money would give them. And you must curb the habit
of expressing opinions, which are not based upon facts or what you believe me be facts. Did you know that didn't
have a right to an opinion about anything, not anything at all, unless you basically defined facts or what you belief to be facts. I bet you wouldn't
admit that, that's true. I bet you want to admit that
that's true that you have no rights whatsoever to have
an opinion about anything at any time, unless it's based
upon what you believe to be facts or actual provable facts. Now, why do I say you
don't have a right to it? Because it is dangerous for you to have, you can do it, I mean, you
have a right of course, but I mean to say you have
the responsibility of assuming what happens to you if you
would express an opinion, it's not based upon facts or
what you believe to be facts, you will confuse yourself that way, and a lot of people go
all the way through life fooling themselves by opinions that have no basis for existence. And you must master the habit
of being influenced by people in any manner whatsoever, merely because you like them, or they are related to you, or they may have done you a favor. Now I know that when
you've gone the extra mile, you're gonna put a lot of
people under obligations to, and I want you to do that. That's perfectly proper. That's legitimate, to put people under obligations
to you by helping people. Nobody can find any fault with that. But be careful, be careful, in being influenced by people just because they have done you a favor. I'm talking now to the people for whom you've gone the extra mile, and you may be in that
position sometimes too. Or somebody puts you under
obligation to an extent that you don't want to be put under obligation. You must fall in the habit
of examining the motives of people who seek some benefits from, or through your influence. You must control both your
emotion of love and your emotion of hate and asking and making
decisions for any purpose. Because either the use can
unbalance your thinking habits. No man ought to make an important
decision while he's angry. You just shouldn't do it. Correcting children for instance, a bad mistake to discipline children when when your angry, because
nine times out of 10 you'll do it and say the wrong thing,
do more harm than good. And that applies to a lot of grownups too, if you're really angry,
don't make decisions, don't make statements to
people while you're mad. 'Cause they can come back
on you then to do you an awful lot of injury. Self control, or self discipline, you see, we have a less known
self-discipline remember. It plays right along with
this lesson, doesn't it? 'Cause a lot of times
if you're going to be an accurate thinker you've
got to have a lot of self discipline, you've
got to refrain from saying and doing a lot of things
you'd like to say and do. Bide your time, there's
always a time for you to do everything, time what
you say and do properly. And accurate thinkers do that too. They don't just fly
off the handle and say, start their miles to going and going, go off and leave them like some people do. Carefully study the effect
and listen to every word they utter even before they utter it, don't make any decisions or
plans until you have carefully weighed what the effect may
be on you and on other people. I can think of a lot of things
I could do that would benefit me, that wouldn't benefit you, might even injure you. I think of a lot of things, but I wouldn't engage in them
because eventually I'd have to pay the price, because
of whatever you do to, or for another person you
do to or for yourself, it comes back to you greatly to multiply. That's another thing that
comes under the heading of accurate thinking. You've learned very after
you've become thoroughly indoctrinated with this philosophy, you learn not to do anything
that you don't want to come back and affect you. Not to think anything,
not to say anything, not to do anything that
you don't want to come back and that you have to give
countenance to later on in life. You must recognize it
before accepting as facts the statements of other people, it may be beneficial if you
ask them how they came by the so called facts. And when they express opinions, ask how you'll know your opinion is sound. I don't want an opinion,
I want some facts. Then I formed my own opinion. You'll get me the facts
and I'll put them together in my own lane says the accurate thinker. You must learn to examine
with extraordinary care all statements of a derogatory
nature made by one person against the others. Because the very nature of
such statements brings them as being not without bias. And that's putting it very politely. You must overcome the habit
of trying to justify a decision you have made, which turns out to have been unsound, accurate thinkers just don't do that. They reverse themselves
just as quickly as they make the decisions if they find they're wrong. Alibis, and accurate
thinking, never are friendly bedfellows, excuses and
alibis and accurate thinking are not friendly bedfellows. I've never seen the person
yet that was very adept at creating alibis for his
faults and the things that he didn't do that he should have done. The things that they do
they shouldn't have done. In other words, most people
have a great stock of them and you don't have to give
them very much time before they can fling them together
and throw them at you. Good excuse, good alibis
does it don't matter a thing, unless there's something back of them, the sound that you can depend upon. If you are an accurate thinker, you will never use the term they say, or I heard, accurate
thinkers and repeating things they have heard, first identify
the source and attempt to establish his dependability. You know, folks, it's not an easy matter to be an accurate think, right? Have you reached that conclusion already? For a little bit you have
to pay in order to have it, but it's worth it, isn't it? It's worth trying. If you are not an accurate thinker, the people are going to
take advantage of you, you're not going to get much out of life like you'd like to, you're
not going to be satisfied, you will never be a well balanced person without accurate thinking. In order to think accurately
you've got to have a set of rules to go by and
you'll find in this lesson, if you will go over this
lesson and study it carefully, add some notes to it of your own, start now to do some thinking, start to putting into
practice tomorrow morning, or before that time, some of these principles
of separating facts from information, then separating
the facts themselves into two classes important and unimportant, if you just make those four steps along, this lesson will very much
more than justified yourself, and this lesson alone could
well be worth 1,000 times as much as you have put
into the entire course. If it teaches you just
do those simple things, to start separating
facts from information, be sure that you're dealing with facts, and then take the facts
after your dealing with and break them down and throw
off the unimportant facts that you've been wasting so
much time with here before. If there is one thing in the
world that people do not like it's gonna go adversity in
unpleasant circumstances and defeat. And yet if I have evaluated
circumstances properly, and if I have taken inventory of the laws of nature properly, it was intended that we all
should undergo adversities, defeat, failure, opposition. I still say that to
people do not like defeat, they do not like adversity, and yet I'm compelled to tell
you that had it not been for the adversities that I went
through during the early part of my life, I wouldn't be
standing here talking to you tonight, I wouldn't have
completed this philosophy, I wouldn't be reaching millions
of people all over the world because it was out of the
opposition that I met with that I grew with the strength and
the wisdom and the ability to complete this philosophy
and to take it to the people in the shape that is now in. Yet if I were to go back over
the past and had my choice, I have no doubt that I'd
make it easier for myself, just to save as you from your own out. We're all inclined to do that. Find the line of least resistance. Did you know the picking the
line of least resistance is what makes all rivers
and some men crooked? (students laughing) That's right. Yet it's a very common
habit for us to do that. We don't wanna pay the
price of a intense effort, no matter what we're doing. We like to have things come the easy way. And the mind is just like any other part, like any part of the physical body, it's after fees and withers
away and becomes weak through this use. When you meet with problems,
circumstances, and incidents that force you to do thinking
my probably that is the finest thing that could happen to you, because without a motive,
you're not going to do very much thinking anyway. There are 40 major reasons
or causes of failure. More than twice as many
causes of failure as there are principles of success, there are 17 principles of success, some combination of which is
responsible for all successful achievements, and more than
40 major causes of failure. And that is not all of them. These are just the major causes. Now self-examination is one
of the most profitable things that you can indulge in. And sometimes you don't want to do it, but it's a very necessary thing. First I know ourselves as we are, especially our weaknesses. In the putting out a philosophy
of success it is necessary to tell you the things
that you should do in order to succeed at also the
things you should not do. Grade yourself as I go
along as I make comment on each one of them. Grade yourself from zero to 100, meaning if you are 100% free of anyone, grade yourself, 100%. If you're only 50% free,
grade yourself, 50%. And if you aren't free at
all, grade yourself zero. And when he gets through, add the total up and divide
it by 40 and you'll get your general average on the control
of the things that cause men and women to fail. First of all, on the habit of drifting, what circumstances without
definite aims or plans, Now, if you don't follow
that habit of drifting, if you make decisions quickly, if you lay out plans
and follow those plans, if you know exactly where
you're going and around the way, you can grade yourself 100% on that one. But be careful before
you put down the grading, because it's the right thing
in the world that anybody would be able to grade
himself 100% on that one. You really have to be organized
and you really have to be prepared if you're going to do that. Number two on the favorable
physical hereditary foundation at birth. Well, I don't need to
make any comment on that. As a matter of fact, that's a can be or could
be a cause of failure. Also, it could be a cause of success. Some of the most successful
people I have ever known were handicap by bad afflictions at birth. Number three, meddlesome
curiosity and connection with other people's business and affairs, meddlesome curiosity. Now curiosity is a wonderful thing. If we weren't curious, we'd
never learned anything. We'd never investigate. But notice the wording is
that meddlesome curiosity with other people's affairs, something that doesn't really concern you. Of course, none of you
would be guilty of that. So you would rate yourself
100% on that, or will you? Now remember, as you grade yourself, go back into your past
experiences and determine to what extent you have control
of these weaknesses. Number four, lack of a
definite major purpose as a lifetime goal. We've been talking about
that and for a long time, about having it, now we're
putting down the lack of it. If you lack it, here's
the might a good place to rate yourself zero. Five, inadequate schooling. Well, you know, one of
the most astounding things that I have learned
from life is to discover that there is very little relationship between schooling and success. I hesitate there for purpose, not because I didn't have
something else to say, and couldn't remember my lines, but I want you to think about that one. But some of the most successful
people I have ever known have been people with the least
amount of formal education, formal schooling. A lot of people go through life failures and they alibi themselves out of it, kid themselves into believing
that they're failures, because they don't have
a college education. If you come out of college with
a feeling that you should be paid for what you know,
instead of what you do, then that's the college
education has done you much good until you meet that old man destiny, the standing just around the
corner where you're going to pass with a stuff's club,
and it's not definitely copy. You'll find out sooner or
later that you're not gonna be paid for what you know, you're
going to be paid for what you do is what you know, or what you even get other people to do. Number six, lack of self discipline, generally manifesting itself
by excesses and eating, drinking, and in different
store opportunities for self advancement and improvement. Lack of self discipline. I hope you can grade yourself
very high on that one. Number seven, lack of ambition
to aim above mediocrity. If I heard the hum thing, just how much ambition do you have anyway? Where are you going and life? What do you want out of life? What are you going to settle for? I told you the story sometime
ago as a young soldier that came in just after World War number one, wanted to settle for a sandwich and a place to sleep that night. I wouldn't let him do it. I talked him into settling
for a higher rate, and that's where the
result that he became a multimillionaire, I would live within the following four years. I hope I'll have as much success
with you in stepping your ambition up before you
are not willing to settle with life for a penny. Aim high, it's not going to
cost you anything to aim high. You may not get as far as you aim, but you saw and certainly
get farther than you would if you don't aim at all. Get your sites raise up, be ambitious, be determined
that you're going to become in the future what you have failed to become in the past. And number eight ill health often due to wrong thinking and improper diet. There's a lot of alibis on
the count of ill health, I can assure you, a lot
of imaginary aillments, they call it hypochondria
and the materia Medica. I don't know to what extent
you've been cuddling yourselves or babying yourselves on this,
that and the other imaginary. But if you have been doing that, like write yourself down
pretty low on that one. Number nine, unfavorable
environmental influences during childhood. Now, once in a great while, you'll find that the
influences of a person during childhood are such a negative nature, that they go all the way through life with those negative influences. I'm quite convinced that if I
had been permitted to continue in my childhood, as I started
out before my stepmother came into the picture that I
really and truly would have become a second Jesse James
only I would have been able to shoot faster and straighter than he did. Number 10, lack of persistence
and following through with one's duties. That's the honey, Lack of persistence in following
through of once duties. What is that causes people
to fail to follow through when they start something. What's the main reason why
people do not follow through and do the thing and
to see it's done right? (muffled speech) Lack of motive, that's the idea. They don't want to do it badly enough. Believe you with me I'll
follow through on anything that I want to follow through on. But if I don't want to follow through, I can find a lot of alibis
to keep from doing it. Is it profitable for you to
get into the habit of following through and you want to take something, or is it profitable for you to permit yourself to be sidetracked? (muffled speech) Well, all right, let's put
the question in another way. How do you rate on that on? That's the important thing. How do you rate on that one? Do you follow through or
are you easily sidetracked? Are you easily suaded from doing a thing when somebody criticizes you? Believe you me if I had
been afraid of criticism, I never would've gotten anywhere in life. I got to the point eventually
at which I really accorded criticism, because it's only
putting the fight in me. And I found out that when
that fight was in me, I did a much better job
I'm not carried through it. There are a lot of people in
this world who failed because they lack that to driving
for us don't, you know, that causes them to carry it through. And especially when the going is hard, no matter what you're doing, you're going to run into at that period when the going is hard. If it's a new business, you probably finances that you
don't have in the beginning. Or if it's a profession, you will need clients that you
don't have in the beginning. Or if it's a new job, you'll need the recognition
with your employer that you don't have. You have to earn that recognition. The going is always hard
because people in the beginning, and that's why you need
this follow through. Number 11, the habit of a
negative mental attitude, the habit of keeping your
mind negative all the time. Now, which are you a
preponderantly negative most of the time are, or are you preponderantly positive? When you see a donut,
what do you see first? You see the hole first or the donut? - [Students] Donut. - [Napoleon] Well, that's fine. You know, when you go to eat donuts, you don't eat the hole do
you, you just eat the donut. But there are a lot of people who, when they come across a problem, they are like the fellow who
sees the hole in the donut and growls about it, because it took so much
of the nice kick out, but do not see the donut itself. Negative mental attitude. What is the result of a
person who has the habit of allowing his mind to become
negative and remain negative? What happens to that kind of a person? (muffled speech) You can't put him in jail for it. You can't sue him for it. A negative mind repels,
doesn't it, it repels people. A positive mind at tracks, attract what?. People who harmonize with
your mental attitude, your character. I don't saying of birds of
a feather flock together. Well, negative birds flock
to the negative mind, and positive birds flocks
to the positive mind. Who has control over your mind, who determines whether
it's positive or negative? - [Student] You. - [Napoleon] Now, then
there's where I want you to grade yourself on
the extent to which you exercise that prerogative. And that's the most precious
thing that you have on the face of this earth, wherever we'll have. It's the oldest thing that you have complete challengeable control over, is the right to make your mind
positive and keep it that way or make it negative and allow
the circumstances of life to make it negative. And you have to work at it if you're gonna keep your mind positive
because, for what reason? - [Student] So much
negative influence around. - [Napoleon] That's right. So much negative influences
around, so many people, so many circumstances that
are negative that if you are going to become a part of those, instead of creating your own
circumstances in your mind, then most of the time
you will be negative. You have a very clear concept
of what the difference is between negative mind and a positive mind. Can you picture what happens
in the chemistry of the brain when your mind is positive
and when it's negative? Have you ever demonstrated there
are experienced in your own life, the differences between
your achievements when you are afraid and the achievements
when you're not afraid? You have? Like in selling, or I
can doing anything else, in teaching or in lecturing or
in writing or anything else. When I first wrote the
"Think and Grow Rich," I wrote it while I was working
for president Roosevelt during that tip bad Depression
during his first term. And I wrote it in that same
negative mental attitude that everybody else was in. In other words, it was
forced upon me unconsciously. Several years later, when I
got that book out and read it, I recognize it was not a saleable book, because of the temple
of it being negative. And you can pick that up a
reader will pick up exactly the metal attitudes that a writer
is in when he writes a book, no matter what kind of language
or terminology he uses. So I sat down at my typewriter, I didn't change a word in that book. I sat down to my typewriter
when I was in a new frame of mind on, up on the beam, as we say, 100% positive, and I typed that
book in that frame of mind, and that's the thing that
made that book click. You can't afford to do
anything when you're negative. Anything that you expect to benefit you, anything that you expect
to influence other people. If you were able to get
people to cooperate with you, or if you wanna sell people something, or if you want to make a
good impression upon people, don't come here them until you're in a positive frame of mind. Now, the reason I have
emphasized that so much, I wanted to give you a
chance to grade yourself accurately on that one. And in doing that, you will
grade yourself on the average state of mind that you maintain, not just on the state of
mind at any given time, for a short time. I'll tell you a good rule to go by, which will enable you to determine
very large extent whether or not you are more positive
than you are negative. Would you like to have that rule? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] Observe how
you see you when you wake up in the morning start to get up out of bed. And if you're not in a good frame of mind, then I will tell you right now, it's because of a lot of thought habits that are preceded that
or day before perhaps, that have been negative. You can make yourself very
ill by allowing your mind to become negative and it
will reflect yourself the next morning in particular. You see, when you come out of sleep, you're just a fresh from coming
out from under the influence of your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind has been off duty. It goes back on duty and
it finds on this side, you've got to clean up. That's the subconscious
mind has been stirring up all night long, but if
you wake up full of joy and you wanna get out what
you are going to do today, while the chances are that
you've been pretty positive the day before, and maybe
several days before. Number 12, lack of
control over the emotions, both the negative and the positive. Have you ever thought that
just as necessarily you can control your positive emotions
as it is your negative ones? Why is that? Why in the world would I to
control the emotion of love for instance? - [Student] It can get you in hot water. (laughs) - [Napoleon] Lady, it not
only can get you in hot water, it can scold you. (students laughing) That was a good one. A was a very good one. That was very spontaneous
reply you gave too. You must have had some experience. (students laughing) Well, I was thinking another emotion, desire for financial gain
for money for instance, do you need to control that? Why, you're not afraid of
getting too much, are you? (muffled speech) Yes, getting it the wrong way. Now you said it. Well, there could be such thing as you're working that emotion up to
where you want to get too much. I met a lot of people
who had too much money for their own good, especially people who got
it without earning it. Like people who inherited
it, for instance. Would you be interested in knowing why they call me Napoleon? Would you be interested in knowing? - [Students] Yes. - [Napoleon] I'm gonna tell you because it makes a good point here. My father named me, I
being the eldest son, or the first child, my father laid me after my
great uncle, Napoleon Hill, of Memphis, Tennessee,
who was a multimillionaire cutting broker, hoping that
when uncle Napoleon died, that I would get some of the money. Well, he died and I didn't
get any of the money. And when I found out I was
not going to get any of it, I felt very badly. But later on, as I swapped
some of my youth for wisdom, and observed what happened
to the ones who did get it, I was thankfully eternally grateful that I didn't get a dime of it, because I learned a better
way of getting it for myself without having it given to me. Well, number 13, the desire
for something for nothing. Are you ever troubled with that? Desire for something for nothing
or the desire for something for less than it's value, the desire for something without
the being willing to give adequate to compensation for it. How are you ever in
trouble with that tendency? Well, now whoever's, hasn't
been this one time or another. I'd like to ask. But after all, you can
have a lot of faults, but what you want to do is to find out what they are and start
getting rid of them. That's why we're making this analysis. We're giving you a chance
to come face to face and to be trial judge, be defendant,
be prosecutor all at one time, and then you make the decision finally. And if you make it accurately, it'd be far better for
you to find your faults than would be for me to find them for you, because if you find them, you're not gonna spin any alibis, you're going to try to get rid of them. And number 14, lack of the
habit of reaching decisions promptly and firmly. Now, until you reach
decisions promptly and firmly, or do you reach decisions very slowly and after you reach them, do
you allow the first person that comes along to reverse you? Or do you allow circumstances
to reverse your decision without a sound reason? To what extent do you
stand by your decisions after you make them? Just under what circumstances
would you reverse this decisions you've made incidentally. (muffled speech) That's right and you should
all hold it open mind on that subject at all times, you should never make a decision, and say that, that's it and I'm
going to stand by it forever because there might be
something developed later on that would prompt you to
reverse that decision. And, you know, there are
some people who are known as stubborn, who, and once
they've made a decision right or wrong, they'd die by it. I've seen people like that, a lot of them, who would just rather die
than to reverse themselves or have somebody reverse
them on a decision. Of course, you're not like that. That is if you're really
indoctrinated with this philosophy, you may have been like that once, but you're not like that now. Or you're not gonna be
like that later tonight. Number 15, one or more of
the seven basic theories. And I'm not going to dwell
on them because there are the seven basic theories and you
can grade yourself on that one at your leisure. This is a wonderful world we're living in, a wonderful life. I am glad I'm here. I'm glad I'm doing just what I am. And if a unpleasant
circumstances crossed my path, I am very glad for that too, because I'll find out
whether I am stronger than the circumstances or not. As long as I can conquer
them and go over them, I'm not going to worry
about circumstances, about things as opposed me,
people that don't like me, people that say mean things about me. I don't worry about that. What I would worry about would
be if people said mean things about me and I'd examine
myself and found out they were telling the truth, but as
long as they're not telling the truth, I can stand
back and laugh and say, how foolish they are and how much damage they're doing themselves. Now, here is a hunting number 16, the wrong selection of a mate in marriage. Now, don't be too quick to
grade yourself on that one. If you've made 100% mistake on that, look around before you grade
yourself and see if you can do something about
correcting that mistake, maybe resell yourself. I've known of that being done haven't you? You know, there's some people
who believe that all marriages are made in heaven. Well, it'd be a wonderful
thing if they were, but I have seen some that
were not made in heaven. I don't know where else
they might've been made, but they certainly weren't made in heaven. Also I think of business marriages, business relationships that
were not made in heaven. I have helped to correct a lot of those, believe you me. Business associates that
were not working together as a spirit of harmony. And there's no business on the
face of this earth that can succeed unless the people
at the top level at least are working in harmony. And there's no household
or home that can be a joy, a place that you ought to go
to worse than you want to come away from it, unless there
is harmony at the top. And harmony starts with loyalty. Loyalty and dependability, and then will come ability after that, that's the way I would evaluate people. I want to select a man or a
woman for a high position, the first thing I would
look for to see whether that person was loyal to the
people whom he owed loyalty, we didn't have loyalty, I
wouldn't want him or her on any terms whatsoever. The next thing I would look
for would be dependability. Whether or not you can depend
upon them to be at the right place at the right time
and to do the right thing. And then after that would come ability. I've seen a lot of people
who had great ability, but the heads were not dependable
and they were not loyal. And that were very dangerous. Number 17, over cautioned in business and professional relationships. Have you seen people so
cautious that they wouldn't trust their own mother-in-law. Sure you have. I knew a man who was a
cautious once that he had a special wallet lid and he
had a little lock put on it and he hid the key in a
different place every night, so that his wife couldn't
go through his trousers and take money out of his wallet. Wasn't he a honey. I bet his wife loved him. Overcautious in business and
professional relationship. Them lack of all forms
of cautious in all human relationships, have you
seen people like that? That just didn't have any caution. People who start their
mouths to going and go off and leave them, nevermind
what they're going to say and what the effects are
going to have on other people. You've seen people like that haven't you? No caution whatsoever, no
discrimination, no diplomacy, no consideration of
what they're going to do to other people through their words. I've seen people with tongues
that were sharper than a double edge Gillette blades. It never had been used. Let me start them to cutting them, just walk away and leave them. No caution whatsoever. I've seen people who would
sign anything that a salesman put in front of them
without even reading it. They wouldn't read the big type, let alone a little type. Have you seen people like that? 'Cause you're not like that. But you know, you can be overcautious and you can be under cautious. What is the happy medium? Happy medium is found in
the lesson on accuracy. Where are you examined
carefully the things that you're going to do before you
do them, not afterward. Where you the evaluate your
words before you express them, not afterwards. You know it's going to
be a little bit difficult for you to grade yourselves
accurately on this one I know it is. Be perfectly candid with you, it would be a little bit
difficult for me to grade myself accurately on those two on 17 and 18, because there've been a
lot of times in my life when I wasn't cautious at all. I think most of my troubles in
my early days came through my trusting too many people. I let somebody come along and
flatter me into using the name Napoleon Hill and he'd go
out and find a lot of people in the name of Napoleon Hill. That's happened several times
in my life before either tightened up and became cautious. And that can happen to a
lot of people, you know. But on the other hand, I wouldn't
want to become so cautious that I didn't trust anybody for anything. You get no joy out of
living if you did that. (upbeat music) And number 19, wrong choice of associates in one's occupation or calling. How many times have you heard
of people getting into trouble because they were associated
with the wrong kind of people. I see quite a number of hands going up. Let's see how many there are anyway. Well, that's, you're
pretty lucky most of you. Wrong kind of associates. You know, I've never seen
a youngster in my life that became bad or went wrong
that couldn't be traced back to the influence of some
other person, not once, I ever known a youngster go wrong, or to get into bad habits. Listen to that person
that had been influenced by somebody else. Number 20, wrong selection of a vocation or a total neglect to make
a choice of a vocation. About 98 people out of every 100 would grade zero on that one. Of course you students in
this philosophy who have had a chance to become indoctrinated
to lesson number one, indefiniteness of purpose would rate much higher than that. But do you know that all that
when you either grade zero or 100%, there's no halfway point. You either have a definite major purpose, or you don't have it. You can't grade 50 or 60 or
any other amount on that one, nor on definiteness of purpose, I made you promise, you either have one or you don't have it. Number 21, lack of concentration of effort that is divided interest,
you split your interest, divide them over a lot, you went over a lot of different things. You know, one person is
not strong enough in life is too short to ensure your
success unless you learn the art of concentrating everything you've got on one thing at a time, and following through on that one thing and doing a good job. And now here is one that's
going to be difficult for you to grade yourself on preps. Number 22, lack of a
budget control over income and expenditures, having
a systematic way of taking care of your income
and your expenditure. Do you know how the
average person manages that question of a budget? Well, over his expenditures
that is somewhat controlled by the amount of credits that
he can get from other people. That's about the only thing, when the credit shuts down
on and he's more or less slacks off but until that happens, he runs wild with spending. A good businessman would go
bankrupt in a little while if he didn't have a system
of control over its income and its expenditures, that's why the controller
in an organization is for, they call him a wet blanket usually. Every successful business of any size has to have a wet blanket. A man who controls the
assets of the company, keeps them from getting
away at the wrong time, in the wrong way. At number 24, that's right,
you're following me 23 is right. The failure to budget and
use time to best advantage. Now that is the most
precious thing that you have. You have 24 hours in every day, eight hours of that you
must devote to sleep, if you're going to have health
or an average of that much, sometimes a little more,
sometimes a little less, but on the average of eight
hours to take it right off, and another eight hours to make a living. And then you have another
eight hours of free time. In other words, in America
here as free citizens, you can do anything in the
world that you wanna do with that other eight hours. You can see them, you can spend, you can establish good habits, you can establish bad habits, you can reeducate yourself in your mind during those eight hours. But actually, what are you
doing with those eight hours? Now, there's gonna be
the determining factors, to how you grade yourself
on this particular question. Are you budgeting use of
your time the best advantage. Do you have a system of actually making all of your time count, of course you have the
first 16 hours practically taken care of automatically, but the other eight hours,
it's not taken care of automatically, that's something
that you can do pretty much as you want do with, it's flexible. Number 24, lack of controlled enthusiasm. Now there's a honey too. Enthusiasm is among the most
valuable of all the emotions, beyond any question of doubt, provided that you can turn it on and off, just like you would water on a sprinkler or an electric lock. If you can turn your
enthusiasm on when you want to and then turn it off whenever you want to, then you can grade yourself 100% on that. But lack of the ability
to do that would grade you somewhere down the other way,
down toward that little zero. How do you go about
controlling your enthusiasm? Had you ever thought about your willpower, what it was placed there for? You have a power of will
and what's the purpose of that power of will? - [Students] Control. - [Napoleon] It's discipline. That power will is for
discipline over your mind, so you can make your mind
whatever you want it to be. You can form habits, whatever
kind of habits you want. I have never been able to find
out or to determine in my own mind, which is the worst, no enthusiasm at all, a cold fish, or red, hot enthusiasm out of control. They're both bad. If somebody made me mad right now, I can turn off my enthusiasm, just like that and turn on something else, that would be much more appropriate maybe, provided I didn't use the wrong language. But there has been a time
when I could turn on the anger much more quickly than I
could turn on enthusiasm, and I couldn't turn it off near as easily. That's something you'll
have to overcome too. The ability to turn on
any of your emotions or to turn them off. Number 25, in power-ups, that is a close mind based
on grips are prejudice in connection with
religious, racial, political, and economic ideas. Now there you are. How do you rate on that one? Would be a marvelous thing
if you could rate 100% on that and say that you have
an open mind on all subjects toward all people at all times. But if you could say that,
you'd probably not be human, you'd be a saint. However, there are times, I suppose, when if you made up your
mind to be open minded on all these things, you
could for a little while, I know I can for a little while. However, suppose you
grade 100% on that one, suppose that you can be open
minded toward all people, at all times, on all subjects, what is the next best thing to do? Oh, of course, become
a strong one at that, now that's a good one. That's all right. And it is, if you try that out, the more you try it out the more that sometime will take
on more and more time, and eventually it'll get
to where tolerance will be a habit with you instead of intolerance. You know, there are people in
this world and I regret to say that they're in the vast majority who, when they meet others, they immediately begin to
look for the things that they don't like and the other people, and they always find
things they don't like. There's another type of person
and I noticed that this other type of person is always
much more successful, much more happy, much more
welcome when it comes around, who, when he meets a person, whether it's an
acquaintance or a stranger, immediately begins not
only to look for the things that as they like to that person, but the compliment and
say something about them or do something about him. But in the case that he
recognizes good qualities instead of the bad ones. I get a great feel when somebody
walks up to me and says, aren't you Napoleon Hill,
I say yes, I'm Gilly. Well, I want to tell you, Mr. Hill, how much good I got out of your book. Well, I just thrive on that. I love it. Does me a lot of good, unless of course they rub it on too thick. You can do that too you know. But I've never seen the person
yet that wouldn't respond in kind if you compliment that person, even a pussycat is bad
natured as they are, if you stroke him on the back
it will curled up his tail and begin to purr. Cats are not very friendly,
but you can make them friendly if you do the things, the cat likes. 26 failure to cooperate with others in the spirit of harmony. Well, there are circumstances
in life, I suppose, where a failure to
cooperate with the justified or either, I can say there are
a lot of circumstances where you'd fail to cooperate. I come into contacts
with people very often who want me to do things that
I can possibly do for them. They want my influence, they want me to write
letters of recommendation, they want me to make telephone calls from, well, I can't do it. I can't cooperate unless I am
sold on what I'm cooperating with and with whom I'm cooperating. You'd be like that too. Number 27 possession of power or wealth not based on merit or earned. Well, I hope you won't
have any trouble grading yourself on that one. Number 28, lack of the spirit of loyalty to those to whom it is due. If you have loyalty in your heart, to those to whom loyalty is due, you can grade 100% of that perhaps, but unless you practice that all the time, you wouldn't read 100%, you'd grade something lower than that. And incidentally why you
grade yourself anywhere on any of these lower than 50%, but across mark then go back for study
at that particular point, if you grade less than 50%. You should have all of
these causes of failure, at least 50% under control. And it falls below that you've
reached the danger point. Number 29, the habit of forming opinions, not based upon known facts. Now, to the extent to which you do that, give yourself a good grading on that one, and if you grade low 50% on
that begin to work on yourself right away and stop having opinions, unless you base them on facts, or what you believe to be facts. I hear anybody expressing
an opinion on something I have reasonably that
he knows nothing about, I always think of that story to tell on two men who were discussing
Einstein theory of relativity, and they got into a hot argument about it. And one of them said, oh, hell, what does Einstein know
about politics anyway, in the first place. (students laughing) He understood relativity isn't it. Well, there are people like that you know, who have opinions about
everything in the world, they can run their country better than Eisenhower's running it. They can tell J Edgar Hoover,
a few things about his job, and they get all his
work their friends over and improve them. But if you examine them very carefully, they're not doing too
well themselves generate. Number 30, egotism advantage
is not under control. Egotism is a wonderful thing and vanity is a wonderful thing. If you didn't have a little
vanity why you wouldn't wash your neck or your face, or
have your hair curled or washed or whatever it is that
women do to their hair, you have to have a little
vanity, a little pride, but you can have too much can't you? I think lipstick is a wonderful thing, if it doesn't get on my shirt. (students laughing) You know, you can have too much lipstick and ruin on the faces
are a wonderful thing, but you know, nature is
a pretty good old hand and painting faces just right. And when I see a 60 year
or 70 year old woman painting her face up to
look like a 16 year old, I only know she just fooling
herself nobody else because she certainly not fooling me. Egotism and vanity. The ego the human ego
is a marvelous thing. There are a lot of people who
need to build up their ego. They have allowed the
circumstances of life to whip them down until they've got
no fight left in them. No initiative, no imagination, no faith. Your ego, your human ego, that's a wonderful thing if
you have it under control and don't allow it to become
objection to other people. I have never seen a successful
person yet that didn't have great confidence in his
ability to do anything he started out to do. And one of the purposes of
this philosophy that you're studying is to enable you to
build your ego up to where it will do for you anything you wanted to do, no matter what it is. Now there are some people
whose ego needs to be trimmed down a little bit, but I'd say there are very
many more or less need to build up than there are, who need a squishy, very many more. Number 31, lack a vision and imagination. I have never been able to
determine exactly whether this great capacity for vision and
imagination is an inherited quality or an acquired quality. I think perhaps in my case, it
was inherited because I have, had a lot of imagination
right back to the earliest days that I can remember and
that was one of the things that got me in difficult in the old days, I had too much imagination
and I didn't direct it in the right direction. (upbeat music) Number 32, unwillingness
to go the extra mile. Now there is a hunter because
if you have the habit of going the extra mile and I've
learned to get joy out of it, out of the business of doing it, the chances are that you're
gonna put a lot of people under obligations, willing obligations, they don't mind being under obligations to you on that basis. And if you have enough
people obligated to you, then there's no reason why you
couldn't make legitimate use of those people, their
influence, their education, their ability, and what not
to help you succeed in life in whatever you're doing. Do you know how to get
anybody to do whatever it is you want him to do? (indistinct) That's right do something for him first. Now that is as good a
definition as I could have used, but I thought of it for a year. Do something for him first. Now that is right. And look how easy it is to
do something nice for another person, you don't even
have to ask him, do you? No, you don't. Now, how do you grade on that? How many times when you want
to have a great long list of people who are standing
ready as an army to help you when you need help, what are you doing to
cultivate that army in advance to the time of need? You can't just go out and go
the extra mile this minute and the next minute you turn
right around and ask the person to whom you rendered that
service to render you twice as much service, you can't work it that way, won't work that way. You've got to build up. There's something called
goodwill, in advance. And then from there the
timing has got to be right. Now, there are a lot of people
who will go the extra mile only for the sake of expediency. They do it just put you under
obligations and they don't time it sufficiently they'll
not allow you to forget about it so to speak, turn right
around after having done you a favor and ask you for two or three favors. Haven't you had that experience? Have you seen other
people make that mistake? Of course you haven't made it, but the other fellow, or have you? I don't believe there is a
principle of this philosophy that if I had to select one principle, which you can do the most
with the most people I'd say, it's this principle of
going the extra mile, because that's the one thing
that anybody can control at once to do it. You don't have to ask anybody
for the privilege of going out of your way to be nice and
to be of help to people. You don't have to ask
anybody for the privilege. And the very moment you
start doing it, you probably, it all contrast because most
people are not doing that. Well, let's see now, number
what was the next one? - [Students] 33. - [Napoleon] That's right
33, desire for revenge, for real or imaginary grievances, which is the worst to have, or desire. revenge for a real grievance, I need somebody or an imaginary grievance? - [Students] Imaginary. - [Napoleon] I wonder now. Think that went over. Why shouldn't you have, what happens to you when you
have an expression of revenge or a desire for revenge,
for any reason whatsoever? What happens to you? Does it hurt the fella? (indistinct) Oh, that's it. That's the part. It hurts yourself. How does it hurt yourself? (muffled speech) It makes you negative. That's the idea exactly. Poisons your mind. It even poisons your blood if
you maintain it long enough, any kind of a mental attitude
will get into your blood. And they interfere with your sound health. Number 34, the habit of producing alibis instead of satisfactory results. To what extent do you immediately
begin to look for an alibi when you make a mistake or
when you do something that doesn't turn out right, or when
you neglect to do the thing that you should have done. What extent did you come across and say, well, it was my fault, lay it on the line, face the music, or do you begin to
conjure up a set of alibis to justify what you've
done or neglected to do. Now that's the point on what
you're grading yourself? What is the preponderance of
your habits on that subject? Now I would say that if
you are an average person and the chances are that
in the majority of cases, you look for an alibi
to justify what you do or what you refrain from doing or neglect. If you're an average person, if you're not an average person, I'm sure you're not be if you
become properly indoctrinated to this philosophy, you
will not look for alibis because you know, that's only a weakness, that's a crutch that you're leaning on. You will face the music. You'll acknowledge your mistakes, you'll like knowledge your weaknesses, you'll knowledge your errors, because self confession
is a marvelous thing. It does something to the soul. When you really know what your
faults are and confess them honestly, you don't have to
spread them to the whole world, but confess to them where
a confession is necessary. I had a student come into my
office about a few days ago and make a confession that's
going to be a more use to her than anything has happened
since she was a very small girl. Now this student was suffering
because she had not yet learned how to distinguish the
difference between her needs, for things and her rights to have them. Had you ever thought about that? She needed things very badly
and she was willing to get them the wrong way. A lot of people make that mistake. You cannot tell the difference
between the things they need and the things that they
have a right to get. Number 35, lack of dependability. That perhaps it will be a
little bit hard for you to grade yourselves on, but generally speaking, you know whether you're dependable or not, you know whether your words is dependable, you know whether your
performance in your occupation or your job is dependable, you know whether your relationship
to your family or wife or your husband or your children you know, whether you're a dependable
family man or woman, you know that, you know whether
you're dependable or not in connection with your credit
relations with people where you buy things on credit, you know that. Is it a wonderful thing
to have dependability among your friends? You know, just know
exactly where they are, where they're always going to
be regardless of what happens. Is that a wonderful thing to
have dependability among your loved ones while you know,
they're not going to let you down on any score at anytime for any reason. How many of you have a half a dozen people like that in your life? Absolutely dependable
under all circumstances, my, oh my, what a wonderful
groups of people is here. I would say that if you have
three people like that in the entire lifetime, you're indeed fortunate. People that are dependable
under all circumstances. I'm not for sure, but what I
can count the ones that I have that are like that on the
fingers of my two hands, as many people, as I
know all over the world. Dependability, what a
marvelous thing it is. Number 36, unwillingness
to assume responsibilities commensurate with one's
desire for compensation. In other words, your desire
for the good things of life, good income and all that
nice home, nice car, nice wardrobe of clothes, but unwilling to assume the
responsibilities to entitle you to those things. Now, how do you agreed on that? In other words, are you
willing to assume the necessary responsibilities do entitle
you to all the things in life that you want to get out of life? That's the point that
you're grading yourself on. Number seven, the failure
to obey the conscience when it seems advantage it's not to do so. Are there are times when
you tell your conscious, just to step aside for a few
moments while you just don't look right now, because a
little bit of transaction, of business here you want to tend to, a little bit off color. Do you ever do that? Or I'm not going to ask you to vote on it. I wouldn't do that. Well, you know, I think you
can do that a few times. We got away with it, but I think if you got in the habit of it, you would convert your
conscious into a conspirator, that would endorse all of the main things you might ever want to do. And that would be bad. That conscience was given to
you by an all wise creator, so that you would always
know what is right and what is wrong without
having to ask anybody. And if you were on good terms
with your own conscience, if you really respond to
that conscience under every circumstance, and let it be your guide, then you are a very fortunate person, and you have been using
that conscience properly. But if there are times
when the you waiver, you're undecided and you make
your conscious step aside, then you need to grade yourself low, and begin to work on
yourself on that score. I think it's a marvelous thing
that the creator should have given each individual a
judge advocate so to speak to sit over all of his act, all of his needs and all of his thoughts, and tell him when he's
right and when he's wrong. Number 38, the habit of
unnecessary worrying over things one cannot control. Now, how are you gonna rate on that? Unnecessary worry, all the
things you can't control. If you can't control the thing
that you're worrying over, what can you do about it? - [Student] Make the most of it. - [Napoleon] You can adjust
yourself to that thing that you can't control in a
positive mental attitude so as to not let it get you down, or you can transmute that
worry over into something on another subject where you can control it. And then number 39, neglect
to recognize the difference between failure and temporary defeat. Have you ever thought about that? When is failure a failure anyhow? (muffled speech) That's right. When you accepted it as such, no matter what the conditions are, if you accept it as failure, that's it. Is failure ever fails your
until you accept it as such? - [Students] No. - [Napoleon] No, of course not. It's temporary to feel that,
but certainly not failure. You know, if you took no for an answer, if you were selling, and
you took no for an answer every time you heard it you'd
never make a living selling, 'cause it's easier for people to say no, than it is to say yes, and I don't mean this at all. It just means that they
haven't yet been broken down by a good salesman. Temporary defeat failure. Who determines whether a
circumstance in your life is a temporary defeat or failure, who determines that? (muffled speech) That's right. You're the one who determines that. And 40, lack of flexibility
and adjusting to the varying circumstances of life. Lack of flexibility of your mind. Do you know it's necessary at
times for you to go along with unsavory bedfellows,
people that you don't like, you go along with them until such time as they drop out of your life. Of course you could have it out with them, right where you stand. But if you do that to
probably would oftentimes get the worst of it, you can wear them out, walk them to that. By going along with them for a time. If you make an incident
out of everything that you disliking people, if you
make an incident out of it, well, you'll always be in difficulty. If you let these things
that are food, for instance, pass by, time is a wonderful
cure, wonderful agent. You know, it's the greatest
doctor on the face of the earth, of everything, time, oh, mother time, where the father time. Well, anyhow, maybe it's full. There are a lot of things in
this world that can be cured only with time. Now, there are people who
fret themselves to death, ware themselves out making
incidents out of very silly, small unimportant things
everyday of their lives. And there are not a day ever
goes by and a life of any idea that you couldn't make an
incident out of something and have an unpleasant scene with somebody if you would allow yourself to do it. But of course, being a
student of this philosophy, you are going to grade yourself about, let's say about 80% on that one, flexibility that is the
ability to adjust yourself to the circumstances that you don't like, without going down under them and without making an
incident out of them. Now you may have a very
peculiar cause of failure that I haven't mentioned here at all. It'd be most interesting to see what it is if you do have one, because I have given you
a pretty good catalog here of the things that cause people to fail. And one of the interesting
things about this list of 40 things that cause people to fail, what is the most interesting
thing about that list? (muffled speech) They represent things that
you can do something about. Isn't that true? What would be the use of my
having you make this analysis if you couldn't do anything about it. You can eliminate every
one of those causes, every one of them, and you can almost do it instantaneously. In a few hours I'm gonna
take a little time to get to develop more positive habits,
but for the most part, every one of these causes of
failure you can wipe out of your carry rector this very night, by determining the do so, by determining to develop a more agreeable set of circumstances. No matter what your
adversity may have been, go back after you've had this lesson, go back for the last 10 years
and take every unpleasant circumstances that you've ever had, and begin the search now and
see where that seed of an equivalent benefits was even
though you didn't find it and didn't use it. It's very difficult to find
the seed of an equivalent benefit in an unpleasant
circumstance while a wound is still open and hurting. Again, timing is important, but if you'll give it a little time, make up your mind that you're
not going to go down under the circumstances, you give it a
little time and then go back and evaluate it carefully and
you will find that you will have learned something from it of benefit. There are two kinds of cooperation, one based upon force or coercion, and the other is a voluntary
based upon voluntary action based on motive. The vast majority of all
circumstances of cooperation, I think are based upon some
form of force or coercion. Employees oftentimes
cooperate with their employer, but there's a certain
amount of coercion needed. Certain amount of fear is
if they don't cooperate, they will not their jobs. There are other circumstances
where the employees cooperate with the employer because
the employer has made it so beneficial for them to work at that place, that they do it willingly. Any kind of cooperation that's
forced or forced on people or based upon any type of
coercion is not desirable because people only cooperate
on that basis as long as they have to get to the point
where they don't have to do and as long as they kick over the traces. Relatively speaking there is a
small percentage is employers throughout the United States
who understand the advantage of having their employees
cooperate with them on a willing basis, a friendliness based
upon the benefits that they extend to those employees. Cooperation difference from the
mastermind principle in that is based upon coordination
of effort without necessarily involving the principle
of definiteness of purpose or the principle of harmony. The men working in the military service, an army of men for instance, working under their
superior officers represents a tremendous amount of power
based upon cooperation, but it doesn't necessarily
mean that there's harmony, or that they like what they're doing. There's a certain amount of
coercion and force there, they're doing what they have to do, sometimes they like to do it, but sometimes they don't like to do it. Cooperation based on
the mastermind principle is the medium by which great
personal power may be attained. No one has ever acquired such power without the aid of these principles. A fact which places them in
the category of indispensables. Now, cooperation is
indispensable in four major relationships and here they are, in the home, in one's job or profession, in social relationships and
in support of our form of government and free enterprise. Certainly those are a must. And if every citizen cooperated
in those four respects, this would be a better
country than we have yet. I hear examples of cooperation not based on the mastermind principle, Soldiers working under army regulations, employees working under
rules of employment, government officials working
under laws of the nation, professional men, such as
lawyers, doctors, dentists, working under the rules of
ethics of their professions, citizens of a nation
related under a dictator. Observe the matter in which
the cooperative effort assumes greater powers when
the principle of cooperation is combined with the mastermind principle, involving harmony based
on a definite motive. Now, here are some examples of that. Of government officials
when working in harmony with and supported by a
majority of the people, as in the case of Roosevelt's
first term in office, when the emergency of
an economic depression, supplied motives for harmony, and the motive was a desire
for economic recovery effecting all the people. I have never seen a finer
illustration of power, I think through the combination
of the principles of cooperation and the mastermind. And I witnessed there in
the Roosevelt administration during his first term in office. We had a motive, we all had
a motive in getting back to the president, that
motive was survival. We were in danger, there was an emergency and we had to close
ranks and get behind him whether we agreed with this
political principles or not, and we did that. Did it on a grand scale for a time, but as soon as the emergency
passed or was softened by that combination of the
mastermind principle and cooperation again to disintegrate. And before Roosevelt
finally got out of office, there was an upheaval and the
lack of harmony and a lot of other things that caused
a lot of people who are in annoyance and not to mention loss. Employers and their employees
with a motive such as that, which inspired harmony in
the Arthur and Nash clothing company up in Cincinnati when
the company faced bankruptcy. While I was publishing
the Golden Rule magazine, I got to hurry up call from Mr. Nash, of the Nash clothing
company in Cincinnati, to come over to Cincinnati to see him. And I got over there, I found he was in trouble,
he was really bankrupt. For no reason that he could explain, a business that had been
going for years profitably, all of a sudden became
unprofitable and the business dropped off to where
they didn't have enough to really pay the payroll. When I went over the
situation with Mr. Nash, I said, there is only one thing
that can save your business. And that is, if you work out
a plan whereby the employees will take a new lease on life, put their heart and
soul into the business, go along with you, you
can save the business. And we worked out a
plan whereby they would receive at the end of the
year in addition to their regular salaries, a bonus consisting of a
percentage of the profits, quite a bit of details
that I will not go into, but that was the sum
and the substance of it. Mr. Nash called all of
his employees together, he got up and told them
what he had mind he said, I think I should tell you first of all, the company is bankrupt,
we don't have enough money to pay this coming weeks payroll. And he said for a long time, this business had been going
downhill and I noticed that all of the employees were losing interest, that enthusiasm, it used to
prevail here is no longer here. The spirit of the thing's gone, unless we can recapture that spirit, that willingness of enthusiasm
for everyone to jump in and do something while
we're all in the same boat namely bankrupt. And he said, I have a plan
and I think it'll work, it's based upon the golden rule. I have a plan whereby if
you all come down Monday morning and star on a new basis, the basis in the same mental
attitude that you're in 10 years ago when were thriving, go to work, I'll pay your wages
as soon as we can make the wages, including the back wages
that I'll not be able to pay you this coming week, and
if we make a go of it, at the end of the year we
will divide the profits on a basis that will give
you the same standing as a stockholder in the company. I'm going to leave the room
and then you talk it over frankly, and decide what you wanna do, and then when you want to
see me, you send for me. He and I went to lunch, we were gone about an hour, a messenger came over and called
him away from the luncheon, went back, and they announced
that what had happened, they all got together and
they decided that not only was going to accept this proposition, but they came down the next
day where their saving, some of them had money in old socks, some of them in tin cans, some of them in savings accounts, so they'd $16,000 in cash on his desk. They said, that is Mr. Nash, if that's the way you feel about us, this is the way we feel about you. We earned this money
down here isn't as much, but if it'll do any good, use
it and when you can pay it back, pay it back and if
you can't pay it back, that's all right too. You see, they had caught the
spirit of real cooperation. (applause) The company began to thrive, and before Mr. Nash died
some 10 years later, it became the most prosperous
mail order clothing business in the whole United States, and as far as I know,
it still is that today, despite the fact that he's gone. Same business, same location,
making the same kind of clothes, the same people doing the work, failing one day, and starting
to succeed on a grand scale the next day. And what happened there? There was a change of what? - [Students] Mental attitude. - [Napoleon] Change of mental attitude. What caused them to change
their mental attitude? (muffled speech) Was it fear that they'd lose their jobs? No, it wasn't that was it? - [Student] Motive. - [Napoleon] They had a motive. Mr. Nash had inspired
them with his insincerity and purpose and making
them that kind of an offer. They were touched by it. They knew it was sincere
and they made up their minds they were going to be just
as good spokesman as he was. They were not gonna let him outdo them. And when you get in a group
of people together on that basis, I don't care
what their problems are, they all meet those problems successfully. They always do. And then the rotary
clubs and their members throughout the world, that is a marvelous illustration
of the mastermind principle and the harmony and the ranks. I remember when that
rotary club was organized, I belong to the first club
ever organized here in Chicago. I was a member of the original group that Paul Harris organized. And in those days, the purpose of the club was to
honor Paul Harris and to help build up his legal practice
without violating his ethics. That was the original purpose of it. But we finally grew
bigger than that purpose, and the purpose became the
idea of developing fellowship among the members, a good feeling. Well, the rotary is
spread all over the world and it's become a really an
outstanding influence for good, wherever it has touched. You don't do anything in
this world without a motive, there must be a motive to
inspire everything that you do, or everything you refrain from doing. The only person that does
things without a motive is an insane person. He doesn't have to have a motive. Well, at first, the
opportunity to get increased compensation and promotion is
one of the most outstanding motives for gaining friendly cooperation. And wherever that has
been put into use in any business that I know anything about, there has always been a very beneficial and a very profitable return. Recognition for a personal initiative, pleasing personality and outstanding work. Now that's a strong motive
to inspire cooperation, giving a person recognition
when he does a good job, say so, do something about it. I know an employer who, as
the birthdays of all otherwise of his employees, his males
and boys and all of the children, every birthday,
they all get presents from him with a card signed by him in person. Well, his organization represents
just one great big family. In other words, he has built
himself up in the hearts of the people in the
home where the man works. And you can just imagine what
that does to the man himself. And then the third, taking
a personal interest in one's private problems. You know, that's a power for motive too, for gaining friendly cooperation, taking an interest in the
problems of the people that you associated with
that you're working with, helping them to solve problems. You know, a lot of people
say, oh, well, after all this, my problems are mine, but the other phone's problems are his, I'm not interested in them. And you have the right to
do that if you want to, but it won't be profitable to
you it won't be beneficial. If you wanna have a lot of friends, you wanna have a lot of cooperation, you'll make it your business
to look around and wherever you can be of help to people,
you will start in being of help to them. And next, a system of friendly competition between departments, and in departments between individuals. A system of friendly cooperation. Now in a sales organization for instance, if you can have a different
group competing with other groups in the same organization
on a friendly basis, they'll strive to do their
very best in order to win because of good sportsmanship, and able sales managers very
often set up that kind of a motive to inspire their
sales people to do better jobs. Then the hope of future
benefits in the form of some yet unattained goals, which
can best be attained by mutual cooperation. In other words, something that
you want to accomplish with a group of people where it
can only be accomplished by your all pooling together in the same direction at the same time, in the spirit of harmony. Well, you could mention other
motives that may be in your particular case, you need
the cooperation of somebody. Maybe you would know what kind
of a motive that you could plant in the mind of that
person to get that cooperation. But certainly you can't get it
by force or coercion and hope to benefit by it. Because if you get it by that method, sooner or later, the
cooperation will play off, and it'll turn into resentment. Andrew Carnegie method
of inspiring cooperation was based on four principles. First, he established a monetary motive through promotions and bonuses. That was one of his most
potent and influential motive in getting men to cooperate. In other words, all the men who worked for
Andrew Carnegie knew that they had the potential possibility
of becoming an exceedingly well paid executive. They'd seen man after
man do that very thing, starting to get in the
ranks and climb right on up to the top. And second , his question system. He never reprimanded any
employee offensively, but allowed the employee who
deserved it to remand himself or herself through carefully
directed questions. It's a wonderful thing is it? Being able to reprimand
that person or discipline, he'd call him in and started
asking him questions, which could only be
the answered in ne way, the way Mr. Carnegie wanted them answered. Yeah, I think that is very smart. And if he wanted to fault brought out, he'd let the man bring it out himself, he'd put questions to him and force him to bring out the fault or tell a lie, and then of course the
man didn't want to do that especially when he knew Mr.
Carnegie knew what the lie was. That was one of the things
that indicated what a smart man Mr. Carnegie was, he knew
how to get the best results out of people without
unnecessarily hurting them or offending them. And the next, the always
had one or more men in training for his job. And several of them made it. Is that a wonderful thing for
an employer to have a number of men standing around
training for his job? You don't think that'd
be this loyal do you? You don't think they'd
lie down on the job. You don't think they'd refuse or neglect to go the extra mile do you? No, they'd be very silly if they did. Mr. Carnegie knew how to hang out plums, so to speak, for people to
reach for and while he kept the plum just a little bit to
ahead of reach of the man that he caused him to grow
stronger and to build a longer arm for reaching by
having that plum out there for him to reach for. That was much better than
throwing the theorist of a man's heart, losing his job or
something of that sort so many employers had done. And he never made decisions
for his employees, but encouraged them to
make their own decisions, and to be responsible
for the results are off. Is that a wonderful thing? He would not make decisions
for his executives, and for his under executives, and for those who are in
training for executive jobs. I was in the office of
Mr. Curtis, Cyrus Curtis owner of the Saturday Evening Post, who was also one of the
collaborators in the building of this philosophy, when his son in law, Edward Bach came in and
apologized to me for interrupting our meeting and he said, there's something that I must
speak to Mr. Curtis about has to have an answer immediately, and he had to telegram in his hand. And he hardly explained
to his father-in-law that a problem in connection with
buying the supply of paper that they were gonna need
for the whole next year involving a tremendous amount of money, paper for the ladies home
journal and maybe the Saturday Evening Post, maybe
the country gentlemen all. He told his father all
what the problem was and he also told him that
there were three things they could do about it,
and he mentioned them, and he said, now what I
want you to tell me is which one shall I do? Would you imagine what
Mr. Curtis said to him? (muffled speech) He went ahead and very briefly
analyzed each of those three problems, each of little three things, analyzed them for their good
points and their bad ones. And then when he was through he said, it's your responsibility,
that's my analysis, it's your responsibility to
determine which one of the plans you are going to adopt, and Bach said thank you and walked out. And when he left, Mr. Curtis said, if he makes the wrong decision, it'll cost us nine to $1 million. I said, well, why didn't you
give him the right decision? He said, if I had had
ruined a good executive, that's why I didn't. Mr. Bach did become a good executive. He made the Ladies Home
Journal an outstanding magazine of his time, but he
didn't do it by having his father in law make decisions, he made them himself. And that's what made Mr.
Carnegie such a successful man. He taught people who makes decisions, but also to be responsible
for the decisions when they made them. That's an important little item too. Our American system of
free enterprise gets friendly cooperation when
it is not interfered with by outside influences,
by the profit motive. In the United States, if we
took away the profit motive, it would take the very work on
the move of our whole system of free enterprise away. And there are certain pressure
groups that are trying to do that very thing all the time, to take away the profit motive. You have to have a motive
for everything you do. And we have, we believe
in the United States and our system of free enterprise, the finest combination
of motives that exists anywhere in the world. I don't know what you
think about this philosophy as far as you've gone, but I just wanna tell you this in closing, that if you get 50% of the
benefits that are available through all of this philosophy, if you've got to get 50% of its benefits, not a 100 but just 50% of the benefits, you can so thoroughly change
your lives that the next, the coming year that's
ahead of you can be the most outstanding year of your life. And from here on out
the rest of your life, you can enjoy a controlled
destiny one that you drew out for yourself,
where you'll find happiness, pleasure, contentment, security, and where you will enjoy the friendship and the goodwill of people around you, because you will create
circumstances leading to that end. The imaginations at someone
is the workshop where in this fashion, the purpose of the brain and the ideals of the soul. I don't know of a better
definition than that, but there are two forms of imagination. And the first one is
synthetic imagination, which consists of a combination
of recognized old ideas, concepts, plans, or facts
arranged in a new combination. Basically new things
are few and far between. As a matter of fact, when you speak of somebody
having created a new idea or anything new, the chances
are 1,000 the one that it's not anything actually
new, it's a reassembling of something that's old and
something that's gone before. And number two, the creative
imagination operating through the sixth sense in the subconscious mind, as it's based in the subconscious
section of the brain, and serves as the medium by
which basically new facts or ideas are revealed. Any idea, plan or purpose as it is brought into the conscious mind and repeated, and supported by emotional feeling, is automatically picked up
by the subconscious section of the brain and carried out
to its logical conclusion by whatever natural means that are practical and convenient. Any idea, plan or purpose
that is brought into the conscious mind and
repeatedly and supported by emotional feeling. Now, there is something I
wanna call your attention to, ideas in your mind that
are not emotionalized or over which you're not enthusiastic or in connection with
which you don't have faith seldom produce any action. You've got to get any
emotion into your thoughts, or you got to get enthusiasm, or you have to have faith
before you get action. Now, here are some examples of synthetic imagination applied. First of all, Edison's
invention of the incandescent electric lamp. You may be interested to knowing
that there is nothing new about Edison's electric lamp, both of the factors which
when combined made up the incandescent electrolytes
were old and well known to the world long before Edison's time, it remained for Thomas Edison
to go through 10,000 different failures and to find a way of
marrying these two old ideas, bringing them together
ina new combination. As you may know, some
of you or all of you, one of these ideas consistent
in the fact that you could take and apply electrical
energy to a wire, and at the point of friction, the wire wouldn't become
hot and would make a light. A lot of people found that
out before Edison time. Edison's problem was in finding
some means of controlling that wire so that when it
was heated to a white heat it would make a light,
it wouldn't burn up. He tried all of these experiments, to be exact over 10,000 of them, and none of them worked. And then one day, as well as his custom, he laid down for one of those catnaps, to turn the problem over
to his subconscious mind. And while he was asleep, his
subconscious mind came up with the answer I've always
marveled at and wondered why it was that he had to
go through 10,000 failures before he could get his
subconscious mind to act and give him the answer. So he woke up every one of those catnaps, and as he came out of his sleep, he saw the other half of his idea. He had half of it already. He saw the solution to the
other half of his problem, it consistent in the charcoal principle. You know, to produce charcoal, you put a pile of wood on the
ground and set it to fire, and then cover it over with dirt, allowing just enough
oxygen to percolate through to keep that wooden smoldering, but not enough to permit it to blaze. And it burns away a
certain part of that wood leaving the rest, which
is called charcoal. You know, of course,
where there is no oxygen, there can be no combustion. Taking that concept with
which Edison had long been familiar, he went back
into the laboratory, he took this wire that he had
been heating with electricity, put it in a bottle, pump the
air out and seal the bottle, cutting off all oxygen, no oxygen could come in contact at all, turned on the electrical
power that burned for eight and a half hours. And that's the principle
to this very moment, under which the electric lamp operates. That's why when you
drop one of those bulbs, it pops like a gun. The air had all been drawn out of it. The reason being, they cannot
permit any to be inside of that bulb because of it if it were there, it would quickly burn the filament out. Two old simple idea
brought together through synthetic imagination. And if you will examine the
operations of your imagination or the imagination of successful people, I think you'll find that in a
large proportion of the cases, what has been used has
been synthetic imagination and not creative imagination. These ideas, you know,
of giving rearrangement to old ideas and old concepts
can be very profitable. You may be, of course you may
have discovered that there isn't, there's only one new
principle in this philosophy that you study, just one new
one that you may not have been familiar with before. And I have only made
one contribution to it. Everything else is as old as mankind, but what did I do? I use my synthetic
imagination and I reassembled. I started out the salient things
that go into the making of success and organized them in
a way that they had never been organized before in the
history of the word. Organize them in a simple form
where you or anyone else can take a hold of them and put
them into practical use. Now, I often wonder why
somebody else smarter than I didn't think of that a long time ago, before I started into it. You know, when we get
ahold of a good idea, we always are inclined to go back and say, well, why in the world
didn't I think of that? Or if you get it, you think, why didn't I get it a long time
ago when I needed the money. Henry Ford's combination
of the horse drawn buggy on the steam propelled threshing machine. There's nothing in the world, but the use of synthetic imagination. He was inspired to create
the automobile when he first saw his first
threshing machine up, being pulled along by
the propelled engine. They have this threshing outfit
with the machinery attached to the locomotion of the steam engine, going down the highway and
the Mr. Ford observed it, and there and there he got
the idea of taking that same principle and
putting it onto a buggy, instead of the horse, and making the horseless buggy, which eventually turned out
to be known as the automobile. Now, examples of creative imagination. First of all, all basically
new ideas originate through single or a mastermind
application of creative vision, generally through the
mastermind application of creative vision. Now you will observe between two people, two or more people get together, and begin to think along the same line in the spirit of harmony, and they began to work up enthusiasm, all the people in the
group began to get ideas and out of that group will
come an idea pertaining to the thing that they're
discussing in the meeting, they're going into that
discussion from the solution of a major problem, somebody
will find the answer depending on whose subconscious
tunes in to the infinite storehouse and picks the answer out first. And oftentimes the answer
will not come from the smartest or the most
brilliant or the most best educated man in the group, oftentimes it'll come from
the least educated and the least brilliant person in the group. Here are some examples
of creative imagination. Take radium for instance,
that was discovered by Madam Curie, now all
Madame Curie knew was that theoretically there should
be some radium somewhere in the universe. She hoped it would be on
this little bowl of mud that we call uranium. She had a definite purpose, he had a definite idea, she worked it out mathematically
and determined that there was radium somewhere available. Nobody had ever seen any, nobody had ever produced any, nobody had ever defined any. Imagine Madam Curie starting
out to find radium in comparison with the proverbial
story about the person looking for a needle in a haystack, believe you me I'll take
the haystack and the needle every time in comparison with her task. Do you have any idea of what
it was that gave her her first cues, how she went about searching for it? (muffled speech) You don't think for a moment, she went out with a spade
and the medic digging for it in the ground, looking for it. Do you? Oh no, oh, no, she doesn't do that, she wasn't that foolish. She conditioned her mind to
tune in on infinite intelligence and infinite intelligence
directed her to the source. The exact process that you
use in attracting riches or attracting anything else you want, you first condition your
mind with a definite picture of the thing you want, you build it up and support it
with the space in your belief that you are going to
get the thing you want. And you keep on wanting it, even when the going is hard. Well, you take the radar
and the radio for example. Both of them products
of creative imagination. And the Wright brothers flying machine. Now, nobody had ever created
and successfully flown a heavier than air machine
until the Wright brothers produced theirs. Wright brothers had no
encouragement from the public. And when they announced that
they were going to fly the machine, they had flown it
successfully and were going to demonstrate it again, that was North Carolina. When they announced that to the press, the newspaper men were so
skeptical they wouldn't even go down there, not one single
solitary newspaper man went down there on the biggest
scoop in the last 100 years. There they were smartly
like, you know, why is that? They knew the answers, how many people you see like
that all the way through when somebody comes up with a new idea. Smart elect, wise guys,
people who don't believe that can be done because it's
never been done before. There is no limitation
to the application of creative vision, the person
who can condition his mind or tuning it on infinite
intelligence can up with the answer to anything that has an answer. Anything, no matter what it is. And Marconi's invention
of wireless communication. And Edison's talking machine. You know, Edison never created,
but one as far as I know, but one idea that came
out of creative vision, and that was a talking machine. And I before his time, nobody had ever recorded or
reproduced sound of any kind. Nobody had ever done that not
anything even resembling it. And there'd be no talk about it, no stories written about
it as far as I know, and Edison conceived that idea
and almost instantaneously. He took a piece of paper or
an envelope out of his pocket and with a pencil drew a crude
sketch of what became later, the first Edison talking
machine they called them that. One that had a cylinder on, you know. And they tried it out, when
they tried the model out, the thing worked the very
first time quite in contrast, you see the law of compensation
paid him off for those 10,000 failures when he
stood by while he was working the incandescent electric lamp, don't you see what a generous
and the fair and just thing the law of compensation is. Where you seem to be cheated in one place, you will find that will be
made up in some other place, in proportion to your desires, whatever they may be. That works with penalizing too, when you've escaped the cup at one corner, of course, you run a red light, maybe you escaped them again, but the next time he'll catch
you on two or three counts. You'll find he finally
catches up with you. Well, here, out here in nature somewhere, there's a tremendous cop, and
a tremendous recording machine recording all of our good
qualities and all of our bad ones, all of our mistakes and
all of our successes, and sooner or later, they
all catch up with us. Now, a creative vision in
evaluating the great American way of life, we still enjoy
the privilege of freedom and the richest and the freest country ever known to mankind. But we need to use vision
if we are to continue to enjoy these great blessings. If you look backward and
see what traits of character has made our country great, here they are. First of all, the leaders
who have been responsible for what we have in the
American way of life made definitely the application
of the 17 principles of the science of the test with emphasis on the following six. Now they didn't, at that time, they didn't call it these
principles, but these things, they probably weren't
conscious that they were amplifying these principles. And one of the strangest thing
about all of the successful people that I work with, not
one single solitary one of them could sit down and categorically
give me step by step the main modus operanda
by which he had succeeded. They had stumbled upon, stumbled upon them by sheer accident, these
principles are listed here. First of all, definiteness of purpose. Second, going the extra mile, rendering more service
than they're paid for. I want you go back and measure
the seventh is the 56 men that signed the declaration
of independence. I want you to go back and
measure what they did, by these six principles
and see how definitely you can trace the application
of them to their act. Definiteness of purpose, going the extra mile,
the mastermind principle, creative vision, applied
faith and personal initiative. They make prints of American way of life did not expect something for nothing. They did not regulate their
working hours at the time clock. they assumed full
responsibilities of leadership even when they going was hard. Looking back over the past
50 years of creative vision, we find for instance,
Thomas Edison, through his creative vision, personal image, ushered in the great electrical agent, gave us a source of power the world had not previously known. Think of that, that one
man ushered in a new age, the great electrical age, without which all of this
industrial improvement that we've had, all the
radar, all the television, all of the radio would not be possible. What a marvelous thing that one person did to influence the trend of
civilization all over the world. And what marvelous thing
Mr. Ford did when he brought in the automobile, brought the backwards
and main street together, he shortened distances, he improved the values of lands
by causing marvelous roads to be built through them, he gave employment directly
and indirectly to millions of people who would not
otherwise have had employment, and to millions of people who
now today have businesses, supplying the automobile trade. Then Wilburn Orville ride. They changed the size
of the era so to speak, shortened distances
it's all over the world, just those two men operating
for the good of mankind. Then Andrew Carnegie gave
through his creative vision and personal initiative, ushered
in the great steel age, which revolutionized our
entire industrial system, and made possible the
birth of myriad industries, which could not exist without steel, not satisfied with the
accumulation of a vast fortune of his own and the raising
of scores of his associate workers into sizeable
fortunes they could not have accumulated without Carnegie's aid. He finished up his life by
inspiring the organization of the world's first practical philosophy
of personal achievement, which makes the knowhow
of success available to the humblest person. What a marvelous thing one man could do, operating through one other man. So you see now, when you begin to analyze
what's happened here, what a marvelous thing can
take place when an individual gets together with another
individual and forms a mastermind alliance and
begins to do something useful, there's nothing impossible to
two people working together in the spirit of harmony under
the mastermind principle. Without that alliance, if
I had 100 lives to live, I could never create this philosophy, but the inspiration, the
faith and the confidence, and the go ahead spirit
that I got by having access to a great man like Mr. Carnegie, enabled me to rise up to his level. Something I never could have done without this mastermind principle and without creative vision. 'Cause there've been
times, times when logically if I had listened to what
would seem logic and reason, I would have quit this
philosophy have gone to work and got myself a job as one
of my former relatives said, she thought I should have done. Jobs in a nice bookkeeper somewhere, I'd have brought in $75 a
week and it would have been very secure, be wonderful, wonderful, be home every night,
well, almost every night, and everything would have been lovely. Well, believe you me, I had to fight that
argument for quite awhile. I did fight it successfully. I saw bigger things in life. I began to use, not only
my synthetic imagination, but my creative imagination. And then particularly the latter, and it enabled me to
pull aside the curtain of discouragement and of despair, to look into the future and to
see there what I now know is taking place all over
the world as a result of my having passed this way. All of that to creative vision, what a marvelous thing it is
to be able to tap that thing called creative vision,
and through it to tune it on the power of the universe. I am not making a poetic speech, I'm citing science, because
everything that I'm saying is practical and is being done. And it can be done by you. Here is a brief bird's eye
view of what men and women with creative vision and personal
initiative have given us. First of all, the automobile, which has practically changed
our entire way of living. Are those of you who have
been born in the last 25 or 30 or even 40 years, you
can have no concept at all of what the vibrations of this nation were under the horse and buggy
age in comparison with today. Well, in those days you
could walk down the road, or you could ride down the road in safety, you can't even cross the street
where there's a policeman watching you safety,
unless you are very alert like Liam and I. The whole method of transportation, the whole method of doing
business has changed as a result of that one thing called the automobile. And the airplanes, which
travel faster than sound, and how struck this world
to where the peoples of all countries, know one another better. What a marvelous thing it is, perhaps the creator intended that way, that instead of all these words
and things that we've been having in the past that, by
bringing it, reducing the world in size, bringing the peoples
of all nations together within a travel distance
of 24 hours or so, that they would become
better acquainted and finally become neighbors and then
become brothers under the skin, as well as on the skin. If the brotherhood of man ever
takes place it'll be because of these various marvelous
things that the imagination of man has uncovered and
revealed that brings us together and makes it more convenient
to first assemble, and to understand each
other all over the world. You can't carry on a war
with a person that you are doing business with these days, neighbor that you're living by each day, that is you can't do it
and have any peace of mind, you try to manage to get along
with the people that you have to come into contact with. And when you come to know people, you'll be surprised at how
many good qualities that people you previously didn't like have, if you come to know them as they are. And then the radio and television, which give us the news of
the world almost as fast as it happens, and the provides the finest of
entertainment without cost to the log cabins or the mountain country and the city mansions alike, quite an advance over the days of Lincoln as he learned to write on
the back of a wooden shovel in a one room log cabin. Isn't a marvelous thing to
know down in the mountains of Tennessee and Virginia, where I was born, famous only at that time for
mountain feuds, corn, liquor, and rattlesnakes, now you
can turn a little knob and you can tune in the finest operas, the finest
music, finest everything, know what the world is
doing almost as fast as it's doing it. You know, if we'd have those conveniences when I was growing up I doubt
if I would have had my first definite major purpose,
that of becoming a second, Jesse James, I probably
would have wanted to become a radio operator or
something of that sort. How it's changed those
mountain people down there, that all throughout the country
and throughout the world, just there is other these
things that the mind of man has brought forth to introduce
people to one another. You know, it's a wonderful
thing to have a system whereby you can have
this old physical frame and find condition to
do anything you want to and do it anytime you wanna do it. If I hadn't had a system
for keeping myself healthy and full of energy, I couldn't
have done the amount of work that I've done in the years past. I couldn't do the amount
of work I'm doing now. As a matter of fact, at my age with the health that I have, the condition of my physical body, I can run rings around people half my age, who don't have the system that I have. And I have to keep
myself in that condition, several reasons for it. First place I enjoy living better. If my body responds, when I
make demands on for enthusiasm, I want the physical basis to
be there for that enthusiasm. I don't want to get from morning ailing, I don't wanna look in the
class and see my tongue all coated, I didn't want
my breath to smell bad. That's not so good is it? Well, there's always a means
of avoiding all of that. And I hope that you'll
get some suggestions out of this lesson
that'll help you keep your physical body and fine condition. First of all, let's take mental attitude, that comes to the head of
the list as you noticed, because without a health consciousness, in other words, without
thinking and acting and being in terms of health, the chances are that you're
not gonna be healthy. I never think of ailments,
as a matter of fact, I can't afford ailments. I just can't afford them. They take up too much of my time. They disturb my mental attitude too much. And you say what? You can't afford ailments, how are you gonna help having ailments? I have them, well, you may have them now, but when you get through this lesson, you're not going to have them
as often as you did before, there is a way of controlling ailments, mental attitude. First of all, there must
be no griping in family or occupational relationships,
it hurts the digestion. Now you will notice that
every one of these things in connection with the conditioning
of your mental attitude is something that you can
control if you wanna do it. No griping and family or
occupational relationships. You say, well, I have certain
circumstances my family makes it necessary for
me to gripe, complain, all right, change the circumstances, so you won't have any circumstances for griping and complaining. Now, the reason I mentioned
family relationships and occupational
relationship is there where you spend most of your life. And if you're going to allow
those relationships to be based upon the friction and
misunderstandings and arguments, you're not gonna have good health and you're not going to be happy, and you're not going
to have peace of mind. There must be no hatred, no matter how much a person
deserves to be hated, you can't afford to do the hating, you just can't afford it 'cause
it's bad for your health, produces stomach ulcers
and worse things than that. It produces negative mental
attitudes that repels people instead of attracting them to you, and you can't afford that. It attracts to reprise those in kind, and it hurts digestion. If you hate people, they'll hate you. They may not say so, but they will. There must be no gossip or slander. That's a pretty hard one to comply with because there's so much wonderful
material to gospel about in the world seems to fit in. (students laughing) Very great to cut you off
from all of that pleasure but let's transmute that
desire into something that's somehow profitable to you. No more gossip or slander
because they attract reprisals and they also hurt the digestion. And there must be no fear, because it indicates friction
in human relationships and also hurts the digestion. And also, if there's
any fear in your makeup, it indicates very
definitely there's something in your life that needs
to be changed or altered. I can truthfully say that there
isn't anything on the face of this earth or in the
universe that I survey around me that I fear, nothing at all. I used to fear about everything
that the average person fears, but I had a system
for overcoming those fears. If I had a fear now, do you
know what I would do about it? I'd have it out of myself, I would eliminate the cause of that fear, no matter what it took
or how long it took, I would eliminate the cause of the fear, I will not tolerate fear in my makeup, I just won't tolerate it, because you can't have good health, you can't be prosperous, you can't be happy, you can't have peace of
mind if you're going to fear anything at all even death, most of all death. Personally I'm looking
forward to death with a great anticipation, it's going to
be one of the most unusual interludes of my whole life, as matter of fact, it'll be the last thing I experience. I'm putting it off a long time, I've got a job to do, all
that, but when the time comes, believe you me, I'm gonna be ready. It's gonna be the last thing I'll do and the most wonderful day of all, because I'm not afraid of it. There must be no ending,
because it indicates lack of self reliance and it also hurts digestion. Now, here are just some of the things, there are six things that
I give you in a way of dues that only be to maintain
the mental attitudes that is conducive of a
health consciousness. And believe you me, the mind,
the way you use your mind has more to do with your health than all other things combined. You would talk about germs
getting into the blood all you want to but believe me nature
has set up a marvelous system of doctoring inside of you. And your mind knows it, I mean, if that system is working properly, that resistance that's
in your physical body will take care of all those germs, nature has a way of keeping
through body resistance, keeping down the supply so
those germs cannot multiply, and the very minute you become woried, or annoyed or fear and break
down that body resistance these germs begin to multiply by the billions and trillions and quadrillions. And first thing you know,
you really are sick. Then your eating habits, now prepare the mind to
aid you with peace of mind. There must be no worries or arguments or unpleasantness at mealtime. Do you know that the average
family selects little time for the hour of discipline of
the husband and the children, or the wife and the
children as the case may be. That's the one that we
would get them all together. And when they're not inclined
to run away while you're giving them a tongue lashing, they will stand or sit
rather than eat it out while you're saying your peace. But believe you me, if you could see what
happens to the digestion, what happens to the bloodstream, to a person who eats while
he's undergoing punishment, you would know that's
the wrong time to do it, because the thought that you
have while you're eating, go into the foods you eat
and become a part of the energy that goes into the bloodstream. And there must be no overeating. It overworks the heart,
the lungs, the liver, the kidneys and the sewer system. Most people eat twice as much
as they really could get along with, twice as much if you please, and look at the amount of
money you'd save nowadays, grocery bills is what they are. Standing how many people overeat, I mean, people who are
doing sedentary occupations, of course, a man who's digging
ditches has to have a certain amount of meat and potatoes
or something equal to it, necessarily, but a man or
a woman doing office work, in a house for instance, doesn't have to have the same
amount of heavy, substantial food that you would have
on the outside working doing manual labor. And then you must eat a balanced ration with fruits and vegetables
and plenty of water, or the equivalent to water
in some sort of juices. I have a system out in California
of making one meal a day, at least one meal a day
of nothing in the world but live food, that is to say
vegetables, berries, nuts, melons, and things of that sort all alive, nothing has been canned
or processed in any way, shape, form or fashion. And I can tell you I have all
the difference in the world, in my energy while I'm at
home following my established diet, which I can't do here in Chicago, they'd think I was nuts if
I went into a restaurant and ordered the kind of
a meal I have at Chicago, as a matter of fact, I doubt if I could get
that kind of a meal. And don't eat rapidly, it
prevents proper mastication. Now I violate this one,
but don't you do it. I can get away with it
because I have a good strong, vital body, but don't you try it. And a lot of people, you
know, who eat too rapidly not only that but it shows
that you've got too much on your mind, you're not relaxed, you're not enjoying yourself. A meal should be a form of worship. You should have your thoughts
on all of the beautiful things that you wanna do, your
definite major purpose or the things that pleased
you most while you're eating. Or if you're eating with someone else, if you're engaged in conversations, it should be a pleasant conversation, not a fault finding
fishing job, pleasantness. A man sitting across the
table from a beautiful woman, I don't see why I shouldn't
talk about our beautiful eyes and our hairdo and there's
lipstick and all the things that women like to have you
talk about sometimes, if you're the right man, even if you're sitting across
the table from your wife, I don't know any reason why it wouldn't help you and her too. Don't eat candy bars, peanuts
or snacks between meals, or drink too many soft drinks. If you want to take a drink, get a hard one and do me some good. (students laughing) Something like water for instance. (students laughing) Tripped you up on that one, didn't I. You know, I know people,
I knew all of his girls for instance, that the make
a whole lunch of candy bars and knickknacks that they
get down at the new stand and a bottle of Coca Cola, well, a young person the stomach
can stand that for a while, but it's not being treated properly, and sooner or later,
nature makes you pay up for that kind of
mistreatment of your stomach. Be far better if an office
worker go out and get a head of lettuce and put salad
dressing on it and eat that, or some fruit or some grapes
or some anything that you get at the roots, that would be far better than eating these candy bars. Liquor in excess is taboo at all times, except after six o'clock. That is meant to be funny. (students laughing) Now I don't exactly
mean what is said here, except if you leave out
that word excess, yes, I would say it was taboo at all times, but liquor in a reasonable amount, I can take a cocktail, I can take two cocktails, but that's about my limit at one time. Oh, I could take three, but if I did I'd come in
and say some of the things, maybe I shouldn't say and
do some things not to do, and it wouldn't do me any good. I like to be in control
of my mind all the time. What's the sense of pickling
your stomach and your brain, so that you're not yourself? People find out too much about you, you don't want them to know. And initially actually look silly. Don't you think that a
person whose tongue has been loosened up with liquor,
don't you think he makes a spectacle of himself, doesn't
do him very much credit, no matter who he is. If I go into a home as I often do, where they take a cocktail, I don't say, oh, no, no, no, I don't touch this stuff. I don't say that, I take
the cocktail and if I'm in the mood to drink
when nobody's looking, I set it down somewhere. I carry it around, I carry around a cocktail
one the whole evening, before I got to chance to sits down, when I got the chance I
dumped it into the sink and they thought I drank it, but I didn't 'cause I was to make a speech that night, believe you me, I'd have
been the silly thing that got all pepped up with
liquor before making a speech. (students laughing) With the liquor or smoking
with everything else, if it's moderate and if you
take it instead of it's taking you, I'd say it wouldn't be too bad, but the better plan is to
get overusing it at all. And then on relaxation, you need play to ensure sound health, therefore balance all work with an equivalent amount of play. Now that doesn't mean an
equivalent number of hours, because it doesn't work out just that way. I can work one hour and then
five minutes of playing, I can offset that, when I'm writing, I'm an inspirational writer,
as you may have guessed. I write when I'm keyed up, I'm
up on another plane entirely, and it's intensified on the
physical constitution and 40 minutes is all I can stand of it. And then I go into my
piano and sit and play for five or 10 minutes, ad
then I have a completely balanced off that intense
activity that I've been engaged in. And then the sleep eight
hours out of every 24, if you find time to do it. Make a fine habit to get into it, to get to some good sleep. And when I say sleep, I mean,
get in there and lie down and don't turn and twist and
grown and snore and all that sort of thing, lie down
and sleep peacefully, and get in such a report with yourself, your own conscious and your neighbors that you don't have anything to worry about, when you hit that old pillar, you can go right smack to sleep. (upbeat music) And then train yourself not to worry over the things you can't remedy. Now it's bad enough to worry
over the things you can remedy, and I wouldn't worry over them any long than it took me to remedy them. One of my students sometime
ago asked if I didn't worry an awful lot over people who
came to me with their problems. I said, other people's problems, bless your life, I don't
worry over my own problems. Why should I worry over
somebody else's problems? And it's not because I am indifferent, I'm certainly far from in different. I am very sensitive to
the problems of my friends and my students, but not
sensitive enough to let them become my problems, they're
still your problems and I'll do all I can to help you to solve it, but not enough to absorb them
and take them over myself. That's not my way of doing it. And don't you get into that habit either. There are a lot of people, you know, who not only make room in their
makeups for all of their own problems, but they take on the problems of all their in laws and their
relatives and their friends and the neighborhood, and
sometimes the problems of the whole nation. Worry was made for
somebody else, not for me. And don't look for trouble, it will find you in its
own way too soon anyway, don't go looking for it. The circumstances of life have
a queer way of revealing to you the thing you're searching for. If you're looking for
faults in other people, or you're looking for trouble. If you're looking for
things to worry about, you'll always find them, and you don't have to go very far, you don't have to go out of your own house to find a lot of things to worry about, if you're looking for
things to worry about. A person without hope is lost, sound health inspires hope and
hope inspires sound health. Now, what do I mean by hope? I mean, hope of some yet
unattained objective in life. Something that you're working towards, something that you're
trying to do and you know you're going to do it and
you're not going to be worried because you're not doing it fast enough. You know, there's a lot
of people in this world who start off to be rich, they want to make a lot of money, and they're either
impatient, become nervous, work themselves into a
fury because they don't get the money fast enough. Sometimes this desire to get money quickly influences people to get it the wrong way, and that's not good. Develop hope by daily prayer, not for more blessings, but
for those you already have such as freedom as an American citizen. What a marvelous thing it
would be to express prayer everyday in one form or in your own words, or don't need to use any words at all just in your own thoughts. Express a prayer of
appreciation for the freedom that you enjoy as an American citizen, freedom to be ourselves,
freedom to live our own lives, freedom to have our own objectives, freedom to make our own friends, freedom to vote as we please, to worship as we please, and to do pretty much
anything else we please, even abuse ourselves by wrong living if we wanna do it that way. Then the privilege of acting
on our own initiative. A job that is secure from moral hazard just the present time, we think that there's nothing
to danger of war at this time. There might be some time later on, but right now there isn't. And then an opportunity
to secure economic freedom according to your talents, and freedom to worship in your own way, sound physical and mental health, and the time that lies ahead of you. Think of the marvelous thing
that's consistent in the time that still lies ahead of you. You know the richest part of my life and my achievements is still ahead of me. I am still just a
youngster in the business, I've been going to kindergarten, I'm up away into the greatest
school now in my profession, but I'm going to do some really
good work before I pass on. I am making better use of
my time than I used to. Time is a precious thing. I evaluate it in terms of minutes now, and throw away your aspirin
under your headache tablets. First thing you do headache
is nature's way of warning you that something needs scratching. The headache is one of the
most marvelous things in the world, it's a wonderful thing. We couldn't get along without headaches, while we died too young, you
know headache is nothing in the world but nature telling you
that there's some trouble somewhere and you better get
busy and do something about it. Did you know the physical pain
is one of the miraculous and marvelous things of all
of nature's creations, physical pain, it's a language
that every living creature on the face of this earth and every person of every nationality understands. It's the only universal language, the language of physical pain, every living creature begins
to do something when physical pain begins to clamp down on him, because it is a form of warning. And take no prerogatives
of any sort at anytime. That's a bad habit. And remember sound health
does not come from bubbles, but it may come from
fresh air, wholesome food, wholesome thinking and living habits, all of which is under your control. Fat people may be good natured, but they generally die too young. And I don't like to see
people dying too young. Fasting here is one of my perks. Now, if you wanna know
one of the main secrets why I have such marvelous health, why I have no ailments, why I have lots of energy, it's because twice a year
I go on a 10 day fast. 10 days without any food
of any nature whatsoever. I condition my physical body
through two days of preparation by fruits, fruit juices,
nothing but live vital elements going into the body, then I go on my fast of water, nothing but just plain water,
all the water I can drink, but I put enough flavoring
or lemon juice or something in it just a few drops to take
the flatness out of water, because believe you me,
when you're fasting, water will taste mighty flat. And then when I come off of
my fast for the first two days afterwards, I take very light
diet, very little of it. The first day only one small
bowl of soup with no grease in it, and one slice of whole wheat bread. Now, don't you start fasting
just because I said so, and don't you start fasting
at all until you learn under the directions of a doctor or
somebody skilled in fasting how to do it and why I did it. I recommended a fast to one of my students once who was about 75 pounds overweight. And she said, you mean fast for 10 days, I'd starve to death the first day. I would starve to death
the first day if you took food away from me and
I believe she meant it, then she probably would. The person got lost in the
woods and scared to death, I suspect they could starve
to death in two or three days. Believe you me, there is
tremendous therapeutic value, tremendous spiritual value, tremendous economic value in
learning the art of fasting, and on work. Work must be a blessing
because God provided that every living creature must engage
in it in one way or another or perish, is that a murderous
thing to think about. Talk about the birds of the
air and the beast of the jungle, neither wind and
spinning nor sowing nor reap but nevertheless, they have
to work before they can eat. Just to say. Work should be performed
in the spirit of worship, as a ceremony. What a wonderful thing it would
be if you look at your work as the rendering of useful service, think not in terms of what
you're getting out of it, but in terms of the
people that you're helping as a result of what
you were doing in life. Did you know that when you were
engaged in a labor of love, when you're doing something
for somebody just because you love that person, or
he's a friend of yours, you're not doing it for money, do you know you'd never see
you're tired when you're doing that kind of work. And it does something for you, you get your compensation as you go along. I want to tell you that
is this business of going the extra mile is the most wonderful thing in this philosophy, for
what it was do to you as you go along, it makes you feel better, better toward yourself,
better towards your neighbor and give you a better standing
in the world of health. And work should be based on
the hope of achievement of some definite major purpose in life, lest it becomes voluntary
a pleasure to be sought and not a burden to be endured. Work with a spirit of
gratitude for the blessings it provides, both in
sound, in physical health and economic security and
the benefits it may provide one's dependents, that's
embellishing it with love. And then faith, learn to
communicate with infinite intelligence from within, and
adapt yourself to the laws of nature as they are in
evidence all around you. And that's one of the greatest
systems of therapeutics that I know anything about. There's an abiding and an
enduring source of faith. It does wonderful things
to your physical body, and believe you me, if that
does happen to people with ailments, legitimate ailments, I know of no better
medicine to take than faith. And then habits, all habits are made permanent
and work automatically through the operation of the law
of cosmic habits for us, which forces every living thing
to take on and to become a part of the environmental
influences in which it exists. You may fix the pattern
of your thought habits, and your physical habits, but cosmic habit force takes
these over and carries them out, understand this law
and you will know why the hypochondriac enjoys poor health. If you ever have financial
security in this world, you've got to do two things, at least. You've got to budget your time, the usual time, and you've
got to budget your money, your expenditures on your receipt, so that you have a definite plan to go by. Now to begin with, you
have 24 hours of time. Let's take up time first. You have 24 hours divided
into three eight hour periods, eight hours for sleep,
eight hours for work, while you have no control over
the eight hours for sleep, you have to give that over
to nature, she demands that. And you don't have always too
have too much control over the eight hours that you put into work. Even though you're working for yourself, you still don't have too much control. You have to be there. But they're eight hours of the rest of our lives that's yours. You can waste it if you want to, you can play, you're gonna
work and you're gonna enjoy yourself, you can relax, or you can develop by
taking coach's instruction, you can read, you can do
anything you want to do with it. And that in lies like greatest opportunity of the whole 24 hours. It used to be back in the days
when I was doing my research, I worked 16 hours a day,
but it was a labor of love that I was engaged in. I reserved eight hours a day for sleep, and the other 16 I worked. Part of the time I was working
in order to make a living training salesman and so
forth, but mostly in research, getting ready to give this
philosophy to the world. And had it not been for the
fact that I had at least eight hours of free time on my own, I never could have done
the necessary research. Now in those eight hours of spare time, you can practice developing
all of habits as you choose, all cosmic habits of course. Now, you don't have to follow my plans, but you will get some mighty
good ideas in the lesson on applied to faith, in the
model on cosmic habits course, and in the one on the mastermind. Work out a plan of your own. And if it's your plan, it'll
be better than if I give it to you verbatim and you just follow it. Now the suggestions for budgeting of time, budgeting of income and expenses. First thing on your list, your monthly or weekly amount
of income should be put down, should have a regular
book, budgeting book. Now, if you have a family or
if you don't have a family, a life insurance is a must. It's absolutely a must. You just cannot afford to be without it. If you brought children into
this world who are responsible for, to whom you are
responsible for an education, it's up to you to insure yourself
so that if you pass out of the picture and you don't earn any longer, they have done that money
to educate themselves with, that just a must. And if you've married
a wife that's dependent entirely on you, it's up to
you to carry enough insurance to give her a down payment
on a second husband if you should pass out of the picture. (students laughing) But life insurance is a
wonderful thing because it gives you such wonderful
protection in case you are taking away from your
source of production, and a family man, or a
man that's in the business where his services are a
large portion of the assets, there being like that, you
know, in jobs or in business where a key man or key men if taken away would be a tremendous
loss of the business. And the men like that should
always carry themselves, be insured for a large sum of money, large enough to fill up the
chasm and be left by limits they've taken off. So life insurance comes
up to the top of there. So then next to a definite
percentage for food, clothing and housing, don't
just go out and go to work, you can go down to the grocery
store and you can spend five times as much as you actually need if you don't have a system to go by. I do the shopping at our
house believe it or not, I actually doesn't do that. I do it that way, I get what I want. (students laughing) But, you know, I learned a
great deal about shopping by following the housewives
as I needed and found out were good shoppers and
asking them questions, and believe you me, they put me on a lot of things
I didn't know about buying food, about handling food after you buy. And so when I go over to one
of those big supermarkets out in California, I always pick
out the most likely housewives and I follow along behind her and start asking her questions. You'd be surprised how
cooperative they are. They just love to tell you
about what you should do, what you shouldn't. Food and clothing, but, I must say, as long I know, we
don't have a budget to go by, I buy whatever my fancy strikes, but I just happen to be in
a position where a budget on food and clothing is not necessary, but there was a time
when it wasn't necessary. And I imagine in the lives of most people, it is necessary to have a budget. And then a definite amount to
be set aside for investments. Even if it's only a small amount, if it's only $1 a week, even $0.50 a week. It's not the amount that you set aside, it's the habit of being
resourceful and frugal. It's a wonderful thing to be
frugal, not to waste things. And I've always admired anybody
that doesn't waste things. I even liked my grandfather, he used to go around picking
up old nails and strings and pieces of metal,
and you'd be surprised what a collection of the things he had. My frugality never ran to that extent, it ran more to Rolls-Royce
and 600 acres estate. But believe you me, I
got around as long last and learning that no matter
how much of this philosophy you have, if you don't
have a system for saving, a part of what goes through your hands, it makes no difference how
much goes through, does it? And if you don't have that system it will go through all of it. Whatever amount remains after
you have taken care of those three items, should go into a
current checking or spending account for emergencies,
recreation, education, et cetera. You can draw on that,
you don't have to follow your budget on that. In other words, that's a petty
cash account you might say. And if you're real
frugal you let it get up to a pretty good size. You wont keep it down
too low and all of that. And it's a nice thing to know, isn't it a wonderful thing
to know that you have a good nest egg lying in the
bank or in your savings that no matter what happens as
you go down there and get the money, you may not need it. And the chances are once
you in that frame of mind, you won't have to go down and get it. But if you don't have it there, believe you me you'll have
1,000 needs and you'll be afraid in connection with
all of them, won't you? That's right. I think perhaps the thing that
gives me the most courage to speak my peace and to be myself
and demands that my people keep off of my toes, is the
fact that I no longer have to worry where my money's coming from. I just don't have to worry about that. Have no money it's like I
don't have any worries at all. People try to worry me sometimes, but it's likely Confucius to
say when rats try to pull catch Swishers rat generally winds
up in honorable cats belly. (students laughing) (applause) Thought I'd give you a
little time on that one. Now this session with trapping
a little bit of a percentage that goes through your hands. It's not the amount of
that I'm so interested in as the fact that you're
establishing a frugal savings habit. And if your wages or income
is so low that you can't cut your expenses anymore and
you can not absolutely take out of the top off of the top 1%, $0.01 out of every dollar, take that $0.01 off and put
it away in someplace where it's hard for you to get at it. I'm a great believer in
having money invested in the investment trust, where they
represent a great variety of a well known stocks, so one goes bad way, it doesn't affect your investment at all. There are a lot of
those investment trusts, some of them are good and some
of them not so good, perhaps, but if you go to invest
in an investment trust, you ought to go to your
banker or somebody who is acquainted, don't try to do
that on your own judgment. Individuals as a rule are just
not qualified for doing that, but get some of your
money to working for you and you'll be surprised
at what a nice game it is when you know that you're
setting aside a certain amount every month or every week, and that that amount is
beginning to work for you. This mentorship tracking
the money, but that, I mean, getting it in a place where
you can't reach down in your pocket and get it. When I go to the bank, I go to the bank every
so often to get money, pocket money, and I
always take a $20 bill, no matter what amount I get, I take a $20 bill and wrap it
up and putting those little specials pocket in my wallet, just in case I have to
run out of my money, I'll always have $20. Believe you the other day I needed it too, came in very handy, otherwise
I'd have had the cash a check with somebody who didn't know me too well and I wouldn't have
liked to have that done. Saving money you know,
it's a very difficult thing for most people because they
don't have any system to go by. First of all on the choice of
a profession or occupation. How much time are you giving to that? How much starting time have
you given to the question of getting yourself adjusted in an occupation or a business or a profession
as it can be a labor of love. How much time are you
devoting to doing that? You can grade yourself
on all of these things. It's a great thing to run all
the way from zero up to 100. You're not giving 100% of
your time on this first item, but if you haven't already
found the profession or the occupation that can
constitute a labor of love, then you should put in
a lot of time searching until you do find that. Then the habits of thought, how much do you put in on
the can do sort of thinking, and how much are you
putting on the no can do. In other words, how much
time do you putting on what you desire and what you don't desire? Have you ever stopped to take
inventory to see just about how much goes in on the things that you don't desire in life. Fear, ill health,
frustration, disappointment, discouragement, I'll
bet you'd be surprised if he had a stopwatch that you could record the time that
you put in everyday on worrying about things that
might have happened to you but never do, you'd be surprised
at how much of your time goes a little here in a
little late, a little, the other place in the
first thing you know the predominating portion of your
time is going into thinking about things you don't want, unless you have a system,
a budgeting system whereby you keep your
mind definitely fixed on the things you do want. I have three hours a day
set aside for meditation, silent prayer and meditation,
three hours and it doesn't make any difference
swap to are usually when I go home from these lectures, no
matter when I arrive at home, I put in three hours of meditation, expressing gratitude for
the marvelous opportunities that I've had to be given
ministry to other people. And if I don't get a deal at
night and I get it in sometime during the day, just expressing gratitude. Do you know the finest prayer
on the face of this world is not to pray for something. Pray for what you already have. Oh divine providence, I
ask not for more riches, but for more wisdom with which
to make better use of the riches I already have. What a wonderful thing that is. Oh, you have so many riches,
all of you, you have health, you live in a wonderful country, you have wonderful neighbors
that you belong to a wonderful class, you're studying
a wonderful philosophy. (applause) Just think of the things that
you have to be thankful for. (applause) Just think of the things
I have to be thankful for, it's no wonder I am rich, is it. Why there'd be something wrong
with me if I weren't rich. If I couldn't stand here and
tell you that I have everything in this world that I want, it
to be something wrong with me and this philosophy wouldn't there? I'd have no right to
teach it to you whatsoever if I couldn't see that myself about it. I can be the master of my
faith, captain on my soul, because I live by philosophy,
because it's designed to help other people, because never
under any circumstances, do I do anything intentionally
to hinder or harm or endanger another person, never do. (applause) Then your business in
personal relationships, how much time you put into
into public relations, you might say our goodwill I'm building in your relationships with other people in business or in your job. You spend some little
time cultivating people, if you don't, you're not
going to have friends. You really won't. Out of sight out of mind. I don't care how good the friend is, if you don't keep contact,
he'll forget about you. You got to keep contact. Some of these days, I'm
going to get up a series of postcards and it just
takes $0.02 to mail each one. I don't have beautiful
a muscle of friendship on each one so that my
students can have those cards and then mail out one a week
to each of their friends, just to keep in contact. (applause) It wouldn't be a bad idea
for a business to have or a professional man, there'd
be nothing in the world to hinder a professional
man for building up a wonderful time by doing that very thing. And he certainly would never
violate the ethics of his profession by doing it. So these old commercial
atmosphere in it at all, he's only sent out one a month. You'll sent out 12 cards
here with the right message on the back of it signed by himself. Believe you me it would be
the best thing in the world, to build up this practice. Then the habits of health,
physical and mental. How much time you're putting
into seeing to it that you are building those habits to keep
your health consciousness, because the health consciousness
doesn't just grow without some effort, and your religion, how much time you're
putting into living it, I'm not talking about believing in it, I'm not talking about going to church and putting the quarter in the basket on that, anybody can do, how much are
you leaving it in your bedroom and in your drawing room,
and in your kitchen, and then your place of business, and in your office. That's where I want to know how much you're living your religion. And when you grade yourself on that, that's the place to grade
yourself, not in the church, because the chances are you
go to church once a week, maybe more if you belong to some religions you have to go more, but it's not how many times
you go either this counts, it's not how much you contribute
to the church and the way money has gone to it's what
you do to live that religion. That's the thing that counts. In evert way of living. Why, you know, any of the
religions would be wonderful if you live by them, instead
of just believe in them, it'll all be wonderful. I don't know of religion
on the face of this earth that wouldn't be wonderful
if people live by it. Makes you can try it my asking
you to grade yourselves on how much time you're spending
on living your religion, but believe you me, unless
you are very different to most people I know you need
to reflect on this logic. And then they use made of your spare time. That is why you really need
to go to town and examine yourself, really give
yourself an account on that. Just how much of that
eight hours of spare time are devoting to some sort of
advancement of your interests, improvement or your mom
benefiting by association. Just how much are you doing? And then the budget thing
you're spending of money. Have you got a system for doing that? If you haven't got a system work out one. You can make that system flexible. It may be some which when you
have to cheat a little bit, but you can always pay
it back the next week when you don't have cheat. Then got accurate thinking
based on the lesson on this episode, how much time are
you putting into actually learning how to think accurately, following the rules that I
laid down in that lesson. How much are you doing to
put that lesson into actual practice, thinking accurate and then doing your own thinking for once. Then they use major of the power
of thought was a controlled or uncontrolled, are you
controlling your thoughts or are out of your thoughts uncontrolled. Are you letting the circumstances
of life control you? Are you trying to create
some circumstances that you can control? Now you can't control all of them, nobody can do that, but you certainly can
create some circumstances that you can control. And how about this privilege of voting? Yes or no, I guess I'll have
to go to the polls today. Their cooks are gonna
run the country anyway, the politicians and my little
vote's not gonna count. Do you say that or do you say, I have a responsibility
and I'm going to go to the polls and vote because
it's my duty to do that. Pull a vote on that, do you? A lot of people don't, you know, and that's why there's so
many crooked politicians and others in public office
that shouldn't be there, too many of the decent
people that don't vote. Then family relationships, are the harmonious, do you
have a mastermind relationship or are you just letting that one slide by. How much time are you
giving to the bill trip, improving your family relationship? You have to do something about, you know, somebody has to give in,
if the wife won't give in, why don't you give in
gentlemen and vice versa, the husband doesn't give him
start a little mastermind, why don't you give in, why
don't want you to make it interesting for him. You made it interesting for
him before you married him. I'm sure you did, or he
wouldn't have married you. Why don't you try it all
over again and renegotiate your marriage relationship
so that you have a wonderful relationship that I believe you will it'll pay off in peace
of mind or pay off some dollars and cents. It'll pay off in friendships. It'll pay off in every way
that you want to judge it. Then you and your job or your
business or your profession. Are you going the extra mile, and do you like your work? If you don't like your
work to find out why. If you're going the extra mile, how much are you going the extra mile? In what ways are you doing it, and are you doing it in the right sort of mental attitude? And believe you me, I
don't care who you are and what you're doing. If you make it your business
to go the extra mile in connection with every person
where you can possibly do it, the time will come when you
will have so many wonderful friends at whatever it is, you
want it to carry out to them, or they'll be there at your back and call. I don't care where you go, you
might stretch this world over and you'll never find a marvelous
relationship I have with you, wonderful people here in this class. And you proved this here tonight. And I worked at it in order to get that, I want to earn it, I want to deserve it, if I deserve it you will
give it to me, will you? (applause) Thank you very much. People just don't applaud
like that with their hands on their heads, they applaud
with their hearts. And that's the kind of a
pause that I appreciate. I show off some say to Annie
Lou, Annie Lou takes life a little bit more seriously than I do, she works some no anything
that she doesn't stick to it, like I don't do that, I won't do anything I don't like to do, but we are in a wonderful situation. We have wonderful health when
you see her you know that I won't need to tell you,
she's a wonderful person, just a woman I should have had, doing a wonderful job
playing opposite of me in this great to theater of life. And we have everything in
the world we can use or need and we don't want more of
anything we all have just click your fingers here it comes running from a million different sources. Don't think for a moment,
we could have had that on any other pages that
we first deserved it, we earned it. You couldn't have had it without it. And nobody could have anything
in this world worth having without first earning it. If any of you happen to
be students of Emerson, if you read the law of compensation, you will get the sum and
the substance of this lesson very much more quickly. And you'll also get more out of it. After I had read the
Emerson's essays for 10 years, especially one on compensation, and finally had interpreted
he was talking about. I said that someday I would
rewrite that particular essay so that men and women could understand it the first time they read it, and the lesson that you get
tonight is that rewrite. We call it the law of cosmic habit force, because it is the controlling force of all of the natural laws of the universe. You know, we have been in natural laws and obviously they all work automatically. Obviously they're not spending
for one moment for anybody, and those laws are laid down
so that the individual who makes it his business to understand them and adapt himself to them
can go very far in life. And those who do not understand
them and adapt themselves to have them go down in defeat. You've often wondered
about the subject of habit, how happened to have
had it, how we get them. How to get rid of the ones we don't want. And I hope that you'll get
a feeding glimpse tonight of the answer to these questions. You of course know, I have
repeated time and time again, importance of recognizing
that man has control over, but one thing and one thing only, and that's the privilege
of forming his own habits, tearing down those habits and
replacing them with others, refining them, changing them, doing anything in the world
that he wants to do with them. He has that complete prerogative. And he's the only creature
on the face of this earth that has that privilege. Every other thing that comes
into life has this pattern, it's life pattern, and
it's destiny fixed for it. And it's kind of go one
beyond that pattern, we call it instinct. A man is not bound by instinct. He's bound only by the
imagination and the willpower of his own mind. You can project that willpower
and that mind to whatever objective he pleases. He can form whatever habits he
may need in order to take him towards his objectives. And this lesson that you're on tonight deals with that subject. The purpose of the science
of success and of course, what you've been studying
incidentally in the previous lessons are based and designed
to enable one to establish habits that lead to
financial security, health, and peace of mind
necessary for happenings. In this lesson, we examine
briefly the established law of nature, which
makes all habits permanent to everything else except mankind. Now there's no such thing as
a permanent habit for a man, because he can establish his own habits, he can change them at will. You know, it's a marvelous
thing when you stop to consider that the creator gave you
complete control over your mind and gave you a means I'm
making use of that control. And this law of Bush is the means by which you set the pattern of your own mind and direct it to whatever
objective you choose. Now, some of the habits which
are fixed by cosmic habit force and which are not
subject to suspension, or to your circumvention are first of all, the stars and the planets
as they are established in their fixed causes. Is it a wonderful thing to
contemplate all of those millions, billions
quadrillions and trillions of planets and stars out
there in the heavens, all going along with the
cording cruise system, never colliding, so precise
in the system that the astronomers can determine
hundreds of years in advance, the precise relationship
of given stars and planets. Is it a marvelous thing to
recognize that all of that is carried on according to a system. You know, if the creator
had to hangout those stars, and watch everything every night, he'd be a very busy fellow. Now he's not doing to
do that, I don't think, he's got a better system. He's got a system that
works automatically. If you learn what those laws are, you can adapt yourself to
them and profit by them. If you don't learn what they are, you'll probably through
ignorance or neglect, you will suffer by them. I noticed that the majority
of people not recognizing that there is a law of cosmic habit force, go all the way through life
using this marvelous law that far to bring prosperity
and health and success and peace of mind, no, to
bring poverty and ill health and frustration and fear
and all of those things that people do not want by
keeping their mind on those things on cosmic habit
force picks up those habits of thought and
makes them permanent. That is until I come
along and break them up with this science of success philosophy. And that's just why you're here. (applause) Mr. Stone and I had a very
charming lady in our office last week, wanting to sell
us some space or something in a book that she was
getting out based upon the birthdate of people. If you don't know what my birthday was. And Mr. Stone didn't let her
get very far with her story, because he told her that
he would have nothing to do whatsoever with any system
or a book that presuppose, that birthdate had anything to do with what happened one in life. And when he got through, he says, I can't speak for Napoleon
Hill, but that's my decision. And I said, well, you've just
made my speech now, Mr. Stone. I don't get what a star you're born under, I don't care what under
unfavorable circumstances you may have met with in life, I don't care what happened
to you in the past. I do know all that I can take you in, if you will follow my instructions, you can get from where you
are and where you want to go and you'll get that easily. I know that. And I know that you've set
up habits that will make your success so easy you'll
wonder why in the world, you work so hard in the
past and didn't get so far. You know, most people work
harder at failing in life than I work at succeeding,
a whole lot harder. It's much easier to succeed
when you learn the rules and a lot more pleasure
in it than it is to fail. And you sat there, you're
not going to succeed unless you understand this law, cosmic habit hopes and
start building habits that lead to where you wanna go. All actions and reactions of
matter are based upon the fixed habits of cosmic habit force. Have you ever stopped to think of it, that the very smallest particles of matter all exist as a result of habits
that are fixed upon them, and the perpetuation of every living thing through the sex principle,
each seed reproduces its own kind, but each individual
reproduction is modified by the vibrations that is
the environmental influences of the environment in which it exists. Thought habits of individuals
are automatically fixed and made permanent by colic habit for us. Now, there is one for you to think about. Those habits of individuals
are automatically fixed, whether you will, it or not, the thoughts that you give
an expression are going to be fixed into the habits. You don't need to worry about
it if you keep your mind on the things that you
want to become a habit, cosmic habit will take
over from their own out. The individual creates the
pattern of your slots by repetition of thought on a given subject, but the law of cosmic habit
for sticks these patterns and make them permanent
unless they are broken up by the will of the individual. Wouldn't it be a terrible thing
if we couldn't break habits? And when I see the number
of people smoking cigarettes nowadays, I beginning to think maybe they can't break that habit. And I see all the publishers
is that the magazines and newspapers given about the
death high death rate of lung cancer cigarettes, I was
wondering whether or not people can break the cigarette habit. Well, don't get mad about it, I don't smoke either. Something to think about though, isn't it? You know, I'll tell you something friends, if you wanna go ahead and get lung cancer, smoking cigarettes, that's your business. I haven't the thing to say about it all. I want to give you a little
test, that might be helpful. If you can start out tomorrow
morning and prove that your willpower is stronger than
a little pinch of tobacco and a little piece of paper, then you want to begin working
on your willpower right away and reeducating it. When I quit smoking, I laid my pipes down, I told Annie Lou to take
them and throw them away, I wouldn't be leaving. She said, put them away
until you call for them. I said, throw them away,
I'll not be needing them. Habits. Well, if you can't get control
of the habit of smoking, it's going to be very difficult
for you to get control or some of these other habits
of fear and the poverty and of other things that
you're allowing your mind to dwell upon too. when I have some enemies to deal with, I always take the biggest guy first, when I let him, then the
rest of them usually takes their tails between their legs and run. And if you've got some
habits you out to break, don't start with little easy ones. Anybody can do that,
start with the big ones, the one that you wanna do something about. Take that pack of cigarettes
that you have in your handbag there, ladies or in your pocket gentlemen, half smoked up now and when you go home, put it up on the dresser, say, look here fellow, you may not know it, but I'm
more powerful than you are and I'm gonna prove it by not
going into that package again, and let it sit there for 40 days, after which I won't
need cigarettes anymore. Now I don't think that
I'm talking against the cigarette business, you know, after all, I don't have any stock
in the cigarette guys. I am just giving you some ideas
through which you must start testing your capacity to
build the kind of habits that you want, by starting
with the tough ones. I'll give you another habit, go on a week's fast, the
whole week without any food. Tell your stomach that you are the boss. It may think it's the
boss, but you are the boss. Now don't do this on your own, do it under the directions of
a doctor because fasting is not saying things, not child's play. Get control over your stomach, and you'll be surprised at
how many other things you have control over when you have
control over your stomach. You'll know how in my world
can we expect to be successes in this word if we are going
to allow all these myriad habits that come along through
the circumstances around daily life to take hold
of us and ruin our lives, we can expect to be successes. We have to form our own
habits long enough until cosmic habit force takes
them up automatically. Now let's take up the question
of how the individual may apply the law of cosmic habit force. First in connection with physical health, the individual may contribute
to the health maintenance of his physical body by
establishing habit patterns in connection with the following subjects, and there are four of them. And it's not very difficult to do this. If you ought to prove the
importance and the potency and the effectiveness of this law, cosmic habit for sure is a
mighty fine place on page two to start in 'cause I don't
know of anything in this world that men and women won't
anymore than have a good, strong physical body that
responds to every need in life. I couldn't do the kind of work that I do. I couldn't write inspirational books. I couldn't deliver inspirational
lectures if I didn't know that when I put my foot on the gas, so to speak, this is
going to be powerless. And no matter how steep the
hill or how long I know that I've got plenty of power
to go the full distance, because I keep my body and
that kind of condition. First of all, it connects
with your thinking, that's the place to start
in connection with applying cosmic habits force for the purpose of
developing sound health. Now, a positive mind
leads to the development of what is known as a health conscious. You know, what a health conscious is? What is it? Just what do I mean when I talk
about a health consciousness or a prosperity consciousness or any other kind of consciousness. (muffled speech) An awareness. A continuous awareness of a condition. Don't, you know, another word
like predominating tendency of your mind to think
about health and not about disease or ailments. Most people they have a wonderful time telling about their operations. I had a very good friend of
mine visit me not more than six months ago and he had just
come out of the hospital and I wanna tell you that
his vivid description of his operation was such as I can
feel the surgeon's scalpel turning in my back. I finally turned around
and rubbed my back, began to hurt back there
where he was describing, really did, before I got
myself under control. But I didn't ask him
to come back and see me again when he left. And most people don't like to hear you talk about your ailments. They're not interested in your illness, or you are not to be either
except to get rid of them, and the best way to get
rid of them is to form a health consciousness. Think in terms of health,
talk in terms of health, look in the glass a dozen
times a day and say, you healthy man or you healthy woman. Talk to yourself, you'll be
surprised at what'll happen. Now, the policy mind
leads to the development of what is known as health
conscious and cosmic habit force carries out the thought pattern with logical conclusion, but it
will just as readily carry out the picture of an ill health consciousness created by the thought
habits of the hypochondriac. Even to the extent of producing
the physical and the mental symptoms of any disease on
which the individual may fix on his habits through fear. Isn't that a marvelous thing
to know that if you think about a certain ailment or disease
long enough then nature will actually simulate it in
your physical make up. In that down and wise County, Virginia. I know elderly lady down
the mountain section, when I was a small boy used to
come over to my grandmother's every Saturday afternoon
and sit on the front porch and entertain us all afternoon with the operations of herself, her husband, what her husband died with,
what her mother died with, what two of her children died with, and then she always wound up
after about three or four hours of this, by saying, I know
that I'm going to die of cancer and put her hands on her
left breast like this. I've seen her do that a dozen times. I didn't know what cancer was at the time, I found out later. Years later, some 10 years later maybe, my father sent me a copy of
the County paper and I saw an announcement of Sally Ann's death of cancer of the left breast. She finally talked yourself into it. That's not an exaggerated case at all. It just happens to be one of
the cases that I know about. You can talk yourself into a headache, you can talk yourself
into a business condition. You can talk yourself into anything and think yourself into it. If you allow your mind to
dwell upon the negative sides of your physical body. So thinking is important, now, in eating the mental
attitude and the thought patterns established while one is
eating and doing the following two or three hours while the
food is being broken down into liquid farm for
introduction into the bloodstream may determine whether
the food enters the body in a suitable form for the
maintenance of sound health. And did you know that the
mental attitude that you're in when you're eating becomes a
part of the energy that goes into the blood stream? Did you know that? Well, if you don't know that you better be learning about it because it does. You can afford to eat
when you're disturbed, you just can't afford to do it. You can't afford these
when you're too tired, physically, sit down, rest, relax. As a matter of fact, food
should be a form of a religious shared exercise. It could be a ceremony,
a religious ceremony. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is to
go out to the kitchen squeeze that is when I'm home,
squeeze an ice break, big, long glass of orange juice. I worship every drink, every
ounce of that orange juice as it goes down, I don't
just turn up a glass and go, go, go, go, go, like all go down. Once I let it go down a little
bit down and worship every mouthful of it. If you think I am just kidding, if you think I'm just filling in time, because I don't have anything
else to say cherich the idea because I'm telling you
something that's very important about your eating. And if you get into the
habit of blessing your food, not only when you sit down
to the table, but bless it as it goes into your body, as you get into the habit of doing that, I want to tell you right now, it will go a long way
toward keeping you healthy. And then third in
connection with your work, here are two mental attitude
becomes a vital ally of the silent repairman that is working
on every cell of the body while one is engaged in physical action, therefore work should become
a religious ceremony also with which only positive thoughts are met. I think one of the
tragedies of civilization, consistent in the fact that
there are so few people in the world at any one
time who are engaged in the labor of love, that is doing the thing
they wanna do because they wanna do it, not
because they just have to eat and sleep in noise and cold. I'm hoping and praying
that before shall cross over on the other side, that I will not make valuable
contributions to mankind, to the end that individuals
may find a labor of love in which to make a living and earn a wage. What a grand world this
would be to live in if it worked for some of the
people who live here. (students laughing) What's wrong with some of the people, not anything wrong with them, it's just their habits that are wrong. They think wrong. That's whats the matter with them, let them think in terms
of good health, opulence, and of plenty and a fellowship
under the brotherhood, instead of staring up race riots, all of that sort of thing, setting man against man,
brother against brother, nation against nation
thinking in terms of war, instead of cooperation, why there's plenty in
this world for everybody, including the squirrels
and animals and birds, plenty of for everybody. If only some people wouldn't
try to get too much and try to keep other people from getting enough, to wrong thinking. I honestly don't want any
advantage and the benefit of it in nature whatsoever, that can't
be shared with all of my people, everybody, I don't want anything if I
can't share it with people. I want no advantage over other people. So they've all have the
opportunity of sharing with them, my knowledge and my ability to
help them to help themselves. Work, what a marvelous thing it is. Observe that for instance, the famous Mayo brothers have
discovered that four vitally important factors must be
observed to maintain sound physical health, and equal
balancing through thought habits of work and play and love and worship. Isn't that an interesting thing? That's all they think can come
from the great male institute where they have had thousands of people pass through their clinics. They have found out that
those four things are out of character, out of balance, almost invariably it results
in some form of physical ailment, observed that here
in Jersey sound explanation of one of the major reasons for
adopting and following the habit of going the extra mile. This habit not only
benefits one economically, but it enables one to work with
a mental attitude that leads to sound physical health. Isn't that a wonderful thing? When you're doing something
out of a spirit of love, out of a spirit of desire to
be of help to other people, not out of a selfish desire, it tends to give you a better health, and to build up better health habits. And for comparisons, consider
the person who has a habit of griping and perform all
grudgingly on the other negative frame of mind. Nobody wants to even work with him, and nobody wants to employ him
if he can find somebody else who doesn't gripe. The fellow who's gripes
while he's working, not only damages himself, but he damages everybody around him. Mr. Andrew Carnegie told me
that one, single negative mind, you know, organization of 10,000, could more or less discover
the mind of everyone in there inside of two or three days
without even opening his mouth or saying anything just
by releasing thoughts. You go into a home where there's
fighting between members of the family and the moment
you've cross the threshold, even when you get in the, I can tell when I get to the front yard, whether I wanna go in or not. If I can stay if I go in or not. Certainly after I get in there I can tell. We have an experience in our
home that makes me proud of a anything I can tell you about. Almost invariably when the
person walked into our home for the first time they
look around and make some complimentary expression, such as this. For instance, an outstanding
publisher came to see me not long ago, and when he
walked into our living room, he said, oh about beautiful home. And then he looked around again
and after all that he said, it's just an ordinary home,
there's not anything outstanding but he said, well, the word
beautiful is not just the word I want, he said, it's the way
I feel when I get in here, I said, the vibrations are good. I said, now, you're getting hot. But getting up my ally. This home is charged and
recharged constantly with positive vibrations, no inharmonies
inside of this house is permitted, even our
dogs have picked that up, our little Pomeranians. They respond to the
vibrations of that home, and they can tell a person
that's not people harmony with that home in a moment to come in and they don't like that kind of a person. He'll go up and sniff a person, and if he's pleased with
that harmonious atmosphere, he'll go over and kiss his hand. And if she's not pleased
finds it, he's not in harmony, she'll bark at him and back away. I didn't teach her that either. It was their own idea. So homes, places of
business, streets, cities, all have their own vibrations
made up of the dominating thoughts of those who
work and go that way. You go down Fifth Avenue in New York city, I don't care how little money
you've got in your pocket, and then if you walk along
there with those big prosper store long about Tiffany's, you'll catch the feel of that crowd, and you'll feel like
you're a prosperous too, although you may not have very much money. You'll go just four blocks
over in the other direction, over the Eighth Avenue, or Ninth Avenue in hell's kitchen, and I defy you to walk one
block there without feeling like you are as poor as the church
mouse even though you may have all the money in the world. (upbeat music) Economic and financial benefits, let's see what we're going to get out of this connection with cosmic habit force. First of all, a definite major purpose. Through a combination
of the principles of the philosophy of American achievement, one they can reach his
mind and body to hand over to cosmic habit force the exact picture of the financial status
he wishes to maintain. And these will automatically
be picked up and carried out to their logical conclusion by
an inexorable law of nature, which knows no such reality as failure. I have observed by studying
people who are successful, and then I've had probably
more opportunity to study successful people at close
range than any other man living today, I have observed
they think constantly in terms of things they can do, never in terms of things they can't do. I once asked Henry Ford if
there was anything he wanted to do that he couldn't do. He said, well, no I don't think
about the things I can't do, I think about the things I can do. Now, the majority of people
however are not like that. They think about the things they can't do and worry about them, and consequently, they can't do them. They think about the money they don't have and worry about it and they
consequently don't have it and never get it. Money is a peculiar thing, isn't it? Somehow it just doesn't
follow the fellow around that doesn't believe he's
got a right to get it. Wonder why that is. Money is a kind of an unanimous thing. I don't believe it's
the fault of the money. I don't think it's fault there. I think it's in the mind
of the person who doubts that he can get it. I noticed that too, when students of mine start
believing that they can do things, it's starts to change their entire financial condition. I noticed this when they don't
believe they can do things, they don't do them. So the whole purpose of this
philosophy is to induce my students, to build up habits
of belief in themselves and in their ability
to direct their minds, to whatever they want in life, and to keep their mind off
the things they don't want. If you don't know too
much about Mahatma Gandhi, it'd be a good idea if
you could get the book, and read up on the life of Mahatma Gandhi. There's a man who didn't have
anything to fight the British with except his own mind. He didn't have any soldiers, he didn't have any money, he didn't have any military equipment. He didn't even motor fabricators. And yet he put out the great
British empire with his mind power, just resisting him. He didn't want them, and
he didn't accept them, and finally, the British picked up, they got the big idea and got out. Surprising how many
individuals can do that when you set your mind against them, you don't have to say anything, you don't have to do anything, you just have to say in your own mind, I don't want that person in my
life and eventually he'd get out sometimes very quickly. I'm telling you this mind
power stuff it's powerful, it's potent, it's
marvelous, it's profound, if you want to become acquainted with it then start using it. Now this philosophy is the
medium by which one's thought habits may be controlled
until they are taken over by cosmic habit force. And it as well to hear or call
attention to the fact that no one has ever been known to
become financial independent without having first
established the prosperity consciousness, just as no one
may remain physically well without having first established
the health conscious. I remember so well, my greatest difficulty when I started out with Andrew Carnegie. My greatest difficulty was
forgetting that I was born in poverty and illiteracy and ignorance. It took me a long time to
forget the little mountains in the mountains of in
Virginia, where I was born. Long time before I could forget about that and get it out of my system. And always when I would
start out to interview an outstanding man, I'd think,
oh, well, I'm so insignificant. When I come to me and to his presence, I guess I'll be ashamed and
afraid because I remembered where I came from. I remembered my poverty, it
was a long time before I could shake that poverty off. But finally I did it. And I began to think in terms of opulence, I began to say then, well, if
I wouldn't Mr. Edison see me, why wouldn't (indistinct) see me? Because I'm just as big in
life either as he is in his, I not only felt that ladies and gentlemen, but I saw the day when
I made it come true. It's an achievement. When you can reach out and
influence the lives of millions of people all over the world, beneficially I say that's an achievement. And I say, it never would
have been done without having to change the
habits of Napoleon Hill. That was my biggest job believe me, my biggest job was not getting
in to see the man of affairs and to get their collaborations. That was easy. My biggest job was to change
the habits of thinking of Napoleon Hill, and had I
not changed those habits, the book which I have written
and inspired millions of people never would have
had the effect that it had, because when an author writes
a book or makes a speech, the exact mental attitude that
he's in when he's speaking or writing is conveyed to
his audience and there's no malleolus who is smart enough
to keep that audience from picking up the thoughts. You read a book that anybody
writes you and you have impressions about that
writer as you read that book and you can possibly read one
of my books without knowing down deep in your heart that I'm dealing with fundamental principles, as fundamental as infinite
intelligence itself, you'll know that, you
don't need anybody to you. And before I can write a
book of that kind I had to completely build over
my thoughts processes, my habits of thinking, and lean to keep my mind on
the things that were positive and keep it on there automatically. Fixations of fear and faith. Did you know that each one of
you came over to this planet with a marvelous doctoring
system of your own? Did you know that? A chemist don't you know, breaks up your food and distributes it, take charge of the things
that makes your needs. And did you know that if you think right, eat right, exercise right and read right, you know that this
doctor inside of you does everything else automatically. They call it body resistance. I don't care what you call it, it's a system that nature gave
you for balancing everything that you need to keep your
body and fine condition all the time, but you have to do your part. Now, faith a fixation is a wonderful thing if it doesn't happen to
be a negative fixation, but you want to look out
release fixations of fear and self limitations. The things that you can't do, the fear of crit ism or
the fear of anything else. But if you want to make use
of fixation and benefit by the law of cosmic habits force in doing so, go to work on the fixation of faith, fixation of applied faith. Now there is a fixation you can tie to. There is a fixation if
you tied to it properly, when you reach out and call
for the things you need, you'll find them always in place. If there you thought they
were, they'll be close at hand. By all means, cultivate
that kind of a fixation. Don't let it get away from you by neglect. How do you go about making
a fixation of anything? Any thought habit, how do you about it? (muffled speech) Repetition that's right. And applying it in everything
you do and think and say. Reputation. Some of you are old enough
to remember the Coue formula day by day and every way I'm
getting better and better, millions of people all over
this country were saying that, and it doesn't come out to a ticker dam, I am not swearing,
d-a-m, little small coin, unless the person saying it believes it. It wasn't what he said that counted, it's what he thought
while he was saying it. And there were a lot of people
that said it over and over again and then finally
it turned thumbs down on because it didn't work for me
because I didn't believe it in the first place. You can understand why it didn't work. It makes no difference
what format you use, or do you use any oral formulary or not, as long as your thought
patterns are positive, and you repeat them over and over again. I want you to follow the
habits of thinking in positive terms until cosmic habit
force takes up your, mental attitude and makes
it predominantly positive, and not predominantly negative. The circumstances of life
are such that the majority of people have their mind, their minds are predominantly
negative all the time. I want you all to change all
of that and make the mind predominantly positive all the time. So no matter what you want, you can turn on the power
and get some response from the infinite intelligence. Infinite intelligence is not
going to do anything for you while you're in the state
of anger, no matter how much right you have to be angry. Infinite intelligence is not
going to do anything for you, but she's going to let you
do something to yourself if you keep yourself in a
state of a negative mind. You can't afford to go into action, you can't afford to go into expression, you can't afford to have human
relationships while you're in a negative mental attitude. And the best way to keep
from having or being in the negative mental attitude is
start to build up these positive habits let cosmic habit
force take them over and make them predominant in your mind. Here are the negatives
that you should avoid making into fixations, poverty,
imaginary illness, laziness, just plain everyday garden
variety of laziness. Do you know what a lazy man is? He's a man who hasn't
found a labor of love. That's right. No lazy people except those
who haven't found something they like to do. Of course, some of them
pretty hard to please. (students laughing) They go all the way through
life and at the end of it they don't like this, don't like that, as a matter of fact, I
don't like anything, period. They are lazy. And envy and greed and anger
and hatred and jealousy and dishonesty and ripping
without aim or purpose. Here is the ability of
mental attitude in general, vanity, arrogance, cynicism, sadism, and the will to injure others. Now, those are things that become fixation in the lives of most people. And you can't afford to have
that kind of a fixation. You just can't afford it. It's too expensive. Even as a student of
the science of success, I'd still say it's too expensive for you, you can have that kind
of a habit or fixation. But down here are the positives
that you can't afford to have, and you can't
afford not to have them. The definiteness of a
major purpose in life, head there's the list. Make it that fixation by
all means, eat it, save it, drink it, and indulge in some
acts every day of your life, leading in the direction of your overall major purpose in life. And faith, personal
initiative, enthusiasm, willingness to go the
extra mile, imagination, the traits of a pleasing
personality, accurate thinking, and all the other traits
recommended in this philosophy of individual achievement. Now, those are the things that
you can afford to make into fixations so that they dominate your mind. You live by them. You think by them, and you act by them. You relate yourself to people by them. And you'll be surprised at
how quickly you can give yourselves changed lives. You'll be surprised at
how quickly the people who've tried to injure
will at their own accord fall away and become
ineffective and impotent. You'll be surprised at
how potent you'll become, how you will attract to
you new opportunities. You'll be surprised at how
quickly you'll solve your problems on there are onwards. You'll wonder why you didn't do it before, instead of worrying over your
problem while you just didn't get busy and dissolve it, or solve it. Now, every one of those you'll
notice everyone is under your control subject to your control, as a result of reputation of thought, that's all you have to do is
just keep repeating it over and over and over again, and
put some action about it behind the thought. Words without deeds you know are dead. Engage in some sort of action. I want you to develop
fixations by all means, but one should take care of
to see that they are fixated on the subject of that which one wants not that which one does not want. Isn't it a strange thing that
the majority of people go all the way through life with
getting everything they don't want and very few things
that they do want. Isn't that funny? You know, a lot of people
who don't get their mate in marriage that they really want, after they get him or her
and find out about it, know a lot of people like that. I know a lot of people who
don't get out of their jobs, what they want. I know a lot of people who
do not get out of their profession, what they want, like to have more patients
and better patients with better dispositions. Incidentally that's an idea. You know how a professional
man, like a dentist or a lawyer or a doctor or an engineer, how he goes about attracting
a lot of patients that are agreeable to get along with, wonderful patients, pay
their bills promptly and all that sort of thing. Do you know how he does it? (muffled speech) Yeah, being that way himself. That's right, You said that right. That's the idea those are the words, the effect starts with the
professional man himself. His own metal attitude toward
his clients or his patients is what determines what
they do toward him. No getting away from that. That's absolutely true. That happens to a merchant,
happens to a man and a woman in a job or any other person
in any other connection. In other words, if you
want to reform people, don't start with the people, start with you, and get
your mental attitude right and you will find that the
others will fall in line. They can't do anything about it. As a matter of fact, if
your mind is positive, the negative minded person
can't influence you in the least nothing he can do about it. A positive minded person
is always the master of the negative minded person. That is if he exercises his rights. We are what we are today
ladies and gentlemen because of two forms of heredity. Now, one of them we control outright, and one of them, we do not control at all. Through physical heredity,
we bring into this world, a little sum total of
all of our ancestors. And if we happen to be born
with a nice brain power, nice well developed
rounded up bodies, fine, but if we happen to be born
with a hunchback or some flection, there's nothing
much we can do about that. In other words, we have to
take what physical heredity hands just as it is. I know a man afflicted
with the loss of his legs through polio who ran a peanut
stand within two blocks of the White House and
right in the White House a man afflicted with the
same thing was running the biggest nation in the world. And he made an asset out of his affliction instead of a liability. Social heredity however, is another thing. Social heredity consists
of all of the influences that enter into your
life after you are born, and maybe dating back
to the prenatal stage, even before you were born. The things you hear, the things you see, the things you are taught, the things you read about, the legends that you are influenced by, and all that sort of thing, constitute social heredity,
and by far and away, the most important part of
what happens to us all the way through life is due to our
relationship to social heredity, or what we get out of our environment, and how much we control it. It's a social heredity thing, you know, it's a good idea for all of us, all adults to go back
and re-examine ourselves about these vital things
that we think we believe and find out just right
we have to believe them. Where do we get our beliefs? What is there to support any belief? So help me, I don't
think I have any beliefs that are not supported
by good sound evidence, or at least what I believe to be evidence. But I didn't arrive at that
open-minded state of tolerance overnight I'll tell you that now, there was a time when I was just about as intolerance as the next person, but I found out that that was a bad thing for me and certainly not
good for my students to be, to have a closed mind about anything. Thank you very much. (applause) (tape clicking)
