Your Right to Be Rich: Napoleon Hill's Proven Program for Prosperity and Happiness

by Napoleon Hill

Overview

Dr. Napoleon Hill’s landmark book Think and Grow Rich does not restrict the concept of riches to such narrow parameters as fortune and fame. You have the right to be rich, and you deserve to be rich in every way—personally and spiritually—as well as financially. This seemingly simple idea spawned a philosophy about wealth and success that has permeated every generation since its inception.

Your Right to Be Rich gathers transcripts from the most vital and important speeches given by Napoleon Hill. Available in the past only as audio editions and sound-bite snippets, transcripts from these speeches will be presented in print for the first time here.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399173219
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/15/2015
Series:	Tarcher Success Classics Series
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	426,019
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 in Virginia and died in 1970 after a long and successful career as a lecturer, an author, and a consultant to business leaders. Think and Grow Rich is the all-time bestseller in its field, having sold 15 million copies worldwide, and sets the standard for today’s motivational thinking.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION to the LECTURE SERIES,

from the Publisher

Your Right to Be Rich by Napoleon Hill was originally presented as a lecture series to a Chicago audience in spring 1954. Courtesy of The Napoleon Hill Foundation, this publication makes this series of lectures available to you and grows the illustrious works of Napoleon Hill, an American icon of successful living.

Your Right to Be Rich can truly help you achieve your every goal and dream. It will inspire new goals and dreams whereby riches are not restricted to such narrow parameters as fortune and fame. You deserve to be rich in every way—personally, spiritually, and financially. Dr. Hill discovered that those who attained only financial rewards from life, no matter how great those rewards may have been, were the least happy and satisfied people in the world. To be truly rich, you must be rich in all aspects of life.

While Dr. Hill refers to this philosophy as a science of personal achievement—a science of success—you may wonder how success can follow science. Can the steps to riches be synthesized, quantified, and made to work without fail, like a trusted experiment in the laboratory? Dr. Hill defines science as the art of organizing and classifying facts. Like all sciences, the science of success is only useful in its application toward some goal. Dr. Hill presents factual, proven principles so carefully organized and explained that they will, if you follow them carefully and without fail, lead you to the riches you so earnestly desire.

These outstanding lectures represent a unique opportunity to long-devoted students as well as newcomers to Napoleon Hill’s work. From this material, based on his live lecture recordings, we experience Dr. Hill’s personal presentation of his outstanding philosophy as never before, in a remarkable, effective, and dramatic manner. This lecture series gives us Napoleon Hill’s seventeen principles of success, the culmination of decades of study and research.

To more closely achieve the same experience as his students, consider following these three points Dr. Hill strongly emphasized when he gave these lectures:

   • Take notes. Keep a notebook handy and take generous notes, starting now. Writing down the information you learn will help to imprint Dr. Hill’s philosophy more strongly on your conscious and subconscious mind, putting it to work more immediately and effectively. You may choose to write or record your ideas.
   • Add your own ideas. As you progress through the material, expand your notes, constantly adding to them your own original thoughts as well as relevant thoughts from newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV.
   • Use repetition to make these ideas yours. Don’t just read these ideas once. Review this material over and over and over again, emphasizing through the power of repetition their messages of thought and action. The more you work with this course, the more it will work for you.

THE SEVENTEEN PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS

   • Definiteness of Purpose. All achievement starts with setting your major objective and making specific plans for obtaining it.
   • Mastermind. This process lets you reap the full benefits of the experience, training, education, and specialized knowledge and influence of others.
   • Applied Faith. Turn faith into action so that the power of the soul through which your aims, desires, plans, and purposes are developed may be translated into reality.
   • Going the Extra Mile. Rewards multiply when you render more service and better service than you are paid to render.
   • Pleasing Personality. Develop the mental, spiritual, and physical traits that will help you make the most of yourself and lead you to success.
   • Personal Initiative. Taking action is the principle that is necessary for leadership in any walk of life.
   • Positive Mental Attitude. The right attitude creates a path to success and the means by which this philosophy can be implemented.
   • Self-Discipline. Emotions must be managed in order to balance your head and your heart to achieve a coordination of reason and emotion.
   • Enthusiasm. This dynamo of all individual achievement helps you develop self-confidence and overcome negative thoughts, worries, and fears.
   • Controlled Attention. Organize your mind. Focus on success. Coordinate and control the powers of your mind. Use the powerful tool of autosuggestion.
   • Accurate Thinking. Gather facts, weigh their relative importance, use your own judgment, and think a matter through in order to make the right decision based on thought vs. opinion or emotion.
   • Learning from Adversity and Defeat. Understand and circumvent the causes of failure, turning the inevitable setbacks, failures, and opposition into positive benefit.
   • Cooperation. Coordinate your efforts with others and work together to achieve a common goal. Use teamwork and tact to your advantage in your personal and business endeavors.
   • Creative Vision or Imagination. Let the powerful workshop in your mind reveal the ways to express the purpose of your brain and ideals of your soul.
   • Sound Health. Physical well-being is essential to cultivating the energy, vitality, attitudes, and habits for a truly healthy, happy, and successful life.
   • Budget Time and Money. Make and get the most out of your physical resources.
   • Law of Cosmic Habit Force. Understand and apply the dynamics and power of the controlling force and the natural laws that govern the universe (including human relationships).

THE INCREMENTAL POWER OF ALL PRINCIPLES WORKING TOGETHER

Each of these seventeen principles, in and of itself, is of tremendous value. However, this is a synergistic philosophy in which all the elements working together have an overall effect greater than the sum of their individual effects. As Dr. Hill discusses each principle, he frequently refers to one or more of the other principles. His repetition is a purposeful and constant reminder that all these principles are interrelated, each one drawing from and building upon every other one. Much like baking a cake, each ingredient is necessary to get the desired results. You can’t make a cake only from flour or baking powder or shortening or flavoring; you need all the ingredients in the recipe.

You will notice one particular word Dr. Hill uses often. The word is transmute. A dictionary defines it as changing one form, condition, nature, or substance into another. To transform or convert, this thought is essential to your understanding and application of this philosophy.

Transmutation means that you have the ultimate control over your thoughts and feelings. If they are negative, you can make them positive. If they are restrictive, you can make them expansive. If you have held yourself back, you can set yourself free. You have the capacity to transmute or change the habits and patterns that have defeated you.

You will also notice Dr. Hill’s reference to the nine basic motives, also called (in other works) the alphabet of success. They are important to understand because emotions and desires inspire all voluntary actions that become individual achievements. As the basic building blocks of human character, motives are the foundation on which this philosophy rests. They are vital to your understanding of other people and of yourself, for they are part of us all.

THE NINE BASIC MOTIVES

   • The emotion of love.
   • The emotion of sex.
   • The desire for material gain.
   • The desire for self-preservation.
   • The desire for freedom of body and mind.
   • The desire for self-expression and recognition.
   • The desire for life after death.
   • The desire for revenge.
   • The emotion of fear.

As you can see, this list truly mirrors human nature, with motives that are positive and motives that are negative. To achieve the riches we want, we must understand these forces and how to work with them.

The principles of this philosophy and the basic dynamic forces of humanity hint at the exciting and inspiring journey that awaits you. In the following pages, you will learn from the man who developed this philosophy, and who has motivated more men and women to achieve success than anyone else in history. Napoleon Hill, America’s greatest millionaire-maker, will share his secrets of success with you in this never-before-published series of powerful lectures. Take a front-row seat as one of his students. Welcome the wisdom that will change your life. Prepare for the adventure of a lifetime. Accept your right to be rich.

PRINCIPLE #1

DEFINITENESS of PURPOSE

Let’s break down the lesson on Definiteness of Purpose and see exactly what it means and why it’s the starting point of achievements—because it truly is the starting point of all individual achievements. A “definite purpose” must be accompanied by a definite plan for an objective followed by appropriate action.

PREMISE #1: A PLAN FOR ACTION

You have to have a purpose, you have to have a plan, and you have to start putting that plan into action. It’s not too important that your plan be sound because, if you find that you’ve adopted a plan that’s not sound or not working, you can always change your plan. You can modify your plan, but it is very important that you be definite about it. What it is that you’re going after, and your purpose for getting it—that must be very definite. There can be no ifs, ands, or buts about it. 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 hear me talk about it—wouldn’t be 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 life, your business, your profession, your job, or your human relations. That’s where the benefits will really come.

PREMISE #2: MOTIVE DETERMINES EVERY ACTION AND ALL ACHIEVEMENT

The second premise is that all individual achievements are the results of a motive or a combination of motives. I want to impress upon you that you have no right to ask anybody to do anything, at any time . . . without what? Without giving that person an adequate motive. Incidentally, that’s the measure of good salesmanship, the ability to plant in the mind of the prospective buyer an adequate motive for his buying. Learn to deal with people by planting in their minds adequate motives while they’re doing the things that you want them to do. There are a lot of people who call themselves “salesman” who have never heard of the nine basic motives. They do not know that they have no right to ask for a sale until they have planted a motive in the mind of the buyer for his buy.

PREMISE #3: THE POWER OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS

The third premise is that any dominating idea, plan, or purpose which is held in the mind through repetition of thought, and which is emotionalized with a burning desire for its realization, will be taken over by the subconscious section of the mind and acted upon through whatever natural and logical means available. That last sentence contains 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.

“Day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better,” is the phrase originated from Emile Coue, the famous French psychologist. It encapsulates his formula for curing thousands of people, in fact a great many more than he didn’t cure. I wonder if you would know why. After all, there was no desire or feeling in his statement (and you may as well blow into the wind as to make any statement without feeling in it).

The important thing about any statement is whether or not you believe it. If you tell yourself anything often enough, you’ll get to where you will believe it. Even a lie. It’s funny but it’s true, that there are people who tell little white lies (and sometimes not so “white”), until they get to where they believe them. 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. It’s up to you (in the beginning) to lay out your definite purpose, write it out so it can be understood, memorize it, and repeat it day in and day out, until your subconscious mind picks it up and automatically acts upon it.

This is going to take a little time. You can’t expect to undo overnight what you’ve been doing to your subconscious mind through the years by allowing negative thoughts to get into it. But you will find that if you emotionalize any plan that you send over to your subconscious mind, repeat it in a state of enthusiasm, and back it up with a spirit of faith, the subconscious mind not only acts more quickly, it also acts more definitely and more positively.

PREMISE #4: THE POWER OF FAITH

The fourth premise is that 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. Faith is the only state of mind that will produce immediate action in the subconscious mind. By faith, I’m not making reference to wishing, or hoping, or mildly believing, or any of those things. I’m making reference to a state of mind wherein whatever it is that you’re going to do, you can see it already in a finished act before you even begin it. 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 actually do, unless I got careless in my desire to do it, 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. You can put yourself in a frame of mind to do whatever you make up your mind to do, unless you weaken as you go along (as so many people do).

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that there are 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. 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. Faith without deeds is dead, faith without action is dead, and faith without absolute, positive belief is dead. You won’t get any results through believing unless you put some action back of that belief.

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 what a benefit that would be to you? Do you know how many people 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. It’s somewhere between 98 and 100. The percentage that does is so small that I wouldn’t begin to guess just exactly what it is. But judging by the good many thousands of people that I have come into contact with (and you know without my telling you that my audiences and my classes are always above average), I would say that well over 98 percent of the people never in their whole lives develop a sufficient amount of confidence in themselves to go out and to undertake and to do the things they want to do in life. They accept from life whatever life hands them.

Isn’t it strange how nature works? She gives you a set of tools; everything that you need to obtain all that you can use or aspire to have in this world. She gives you tools for your every need and she rewards 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 in action, and she especially wants the human mind to be in action. The mind is not different from any other part of the body. If you don’t use it or rely on it, it atrophies, withers away, and finally gets to where anybody can push you around. Anybody. Sometimes, you don’t have the willpower to even resist or protest when people push you around.

PREMISE #5: THE POWER OF THOUGHT

The fifth premise is the power of thought, the only thing over which any human being has complete and unquestionable means of control. This is so astounding that it connotes a close relationship between the mind of man and Infinite Intelligence. There are only five known things in the whole universe and out of those five is shaped everything that’s in existence, from the smallest electrons and protons of matter on up to the largest suns that float out there in the heavens, including you and me. Just five things. There’s time, space, energy, and matter, and those four things would be no good without the fifth thing. They’d be nothing. Everything would be chaos. You and I wouldn’t have, never could have existed without that fifth thing. What do you think it is? Universal Intelligence.

It reflects itself in every blade of grass, everything that grows out of the ground, and in all of the electrons and protons of matter. It reflects itself in space and in time, in everything that is. There’s intelligence—intelligence operating all the time—and the person who is the most successful is the one who finds the ways and means to appropriate most of this intelligence through his brain and put it into action. This intelligence permeates the whole universe: space, time, matter, energy, and everything else. 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 is mainly to give you a pattern, a blueprint, by which you can take possession of your 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 others. Take it all as is.

PREMISE #6: SUBCONSCIOUS LINK TO INFINITE INTELLIGENCE

The sixth premise states that the subconscious section of the mind appears to be the only doorway of individual approach to Infinite Intelligence.

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, from the best observations that I have been able to make through thousands of experiments, it appears true. 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 the subject of this lesson. The basic approach is faith based upon definiteness of purpose. This one sentence gives you the key to this premise: 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 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 and use it? Haven’t you had that happen to you many times? Doesn’t it happen every day?

If you’ve had a chance to be close to people who are very successful, you’ll know that is one thing that they’re not bothered by. If they want to do something, it never occurs to them that they can’t do it. I hope that in your association with Napoleon Hill Associates, you’ve come to know my distinguished business associate, Mr. W. Clement Stone. 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 worried him. Why? Because he has confidence in his ability to use his mind and to make that mind create the circumstances that he wants to be created. That’s the condition and the operation of mind—any successful mind—and that’s going to be the condition of your mind when you get through with this philosophy. You’re going to be able to project your mind into whatever objective you choose and there’ll never be a question in your mind as to whether you can do what you want to do or not—never a question in the world.

PREMISE #7: BRAIN AS THOUGHT TRANSMITTER

The seventh premise is that every brain is both a receiving set and broadcasting station for the vibrations of thought. This explains the importance of moving with definiteness of purpose instead of drifting. A brain thoroughly charged with the nature of one’s purpose will begin to attract the physical or material equivalents of that purpose. Get it into your consciousness that the first radio broadcasting set is the one that exists in the brain of man. Not only does it exist in the brain of man, it also exists in a great many animals. I have a couple of Pomeranian dogs and they will 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 along or whether they’re not. I 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. If you’re a salesman and you’re going to call on a prospective buyer, the sale ought to be made before you ever come into the presence of the buyer. If you’re going to do anything requiring the cooperation of other people, condition your mind so that you know the other fellow’s going to cooperate. Why? Because the plan that you’re going to offer is so fair, honest, and beneficial to him that he can’t refuse it. In other words, you have a right to his cooperation. What a change there will be in people when you come sending out positive thoughts instead of thoughts of fear over this broadcasting station of yours.

Here’s a good illustration of how this broadcasting station works. Maybe you need a thousand dollars very badly. You go down to the bank because you’ve got to have that thousand by day after tomorrow or else they’re going to take back your car, or the furniture, or something else. You just have to have that thousand dollars. The banker can tell the moment you walk inside the door that you just have to have it. The funny thing is, he doesn’t want you to have it. Actually it’s not funny, it’s tragic. It’s like carrying matches around in your pocket all the time and being surprised when you eventually set your own house on fire. You broadcast your thoughts. They precede you. And, when you get there, you find that instead of getting the cooperation you went after, the other person reflects back to you that state of doubt, that state of mind that you sent out ahead.

While I was doing the research on this philosophy, I made my living teaching salesmanship. I taught over thirty thousand salesmen, many of them now life members of the coveted million-dollar round table in the life insurance field. 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. The first thing I taught people under my direction was that they must make the sale to themselves before they try to make it to the other fellow. If they don’t do that, they’re not going to make a sale. Somebody might buy something from him or her, but they’ll never make a sale unless they first make it to themselves.

Every brain is a broadcasting station and a receiving set and you can attune that brain so that it’ll attract the positive vibrations released by other people. This is the point I’m coming to and I want you to get. There are myriad vibrations floating out there constantly. You can train your own mind to pick up, and to attract, only the vibrations that are related to what you want most in life. How do you do that? You keep your mind on what you want most in life—your definite major purpose—so that, by repetition, by thought, and by action, the brain will eventually only identify vibrations related to your definite purpose. What a marvelous thought. You can educate your brain so that it will absolutely refuse to pick up any vibrations except those related to what you want. When you get your brain under control like that, you will be on the path—really and truly on the beam.

BENEFITS OF DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE

What are some of the benefits of definiteness of purpose? First, definiteness of purpose automatically develops self-reliance, personal initiative, imagination, enthusiasm, self-discipline, and concentration of effort. All of these are vital and important prerequisites for success, which you develop through definiteness of purpose. This requires knowing what you want, having a plan for getting it, and having your mind mostly occupied with carrying out that plan.

PUT INFINITE INTELLIGENCE TO WORK

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 out that your plan is not right, immediately discard it and get another one. Keep at it until you find one that will work. In the process, remember that Infinite Intelligence, with all Its wisdom, might have a plan for you better than the one you had for yourself. Have an open mind, so that if you adopt a plan to carry out your major purpose (or a minor purpose) and if it doesn’t work well, you can dismiss that plan and ask for guidance from Infinite Intelligence. You may get that guidance, and what can you do to be sure that you’ll get it? You can believe that you’ll get it. It’s not even going to hurt if you say out loud orally that you believe it. I suspect that the Creator knows your thought, but I’ve found that if you express yourself with a lot of enthusiasm, it stirs your belief and arouses your subconscious mind.

When I wrote Think and Grow Rich, the original title was The Thirteen Steps to Riches. Both the publisher and I knew that was not a box office title. We had to have a million-dollar title. They set the book in type, and the publisher kept prodding me every day to give him the title I wanted. I wrote five or six hundred titles but none of them were any good. Not any of them. One day, my publisher called me and scared the dickens out of me by saying, “Tomorrow morning I’ve got to have that title, and if you don’t have one, I have one that’s a humdinger.” “What is it?” I asked. He said, “We’re going to call it Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle.” I replied, “My goodness, you’ll ruin me! This is a dignified book and that flippant title will ruin the book, and me too!” “Well,” he said, “that’s the title unless you give me a better one by tomorrow morning.” Now, I want you to follow this incident because it’s potent food for thought. That night, I sat down on my bed and I had a talk with my subconscious mind and I said, “Now, you and I’ve gone a long way together. You’ve done a lot of things for me, and some things to me (thanks to my ignorance). But, I’ve got to have a million-dollar title and I’ve got to have it tonight, do you understand?” I was talking so loudly that the man in the apartment above me thumped on the floor. I don’t blame him because he probably thought I was quarrelling with my wife. I really gave the subconscious mind no doubt as to what I wanted. I didn’t tell the subconscious mind exactly what kind of a title, I only said it’s got to be a million-dollar title. I went to bed only after I had tried my subconscious mind and I reached that physiological moment where I knew it was going to produce what I wanted. If I hadn’t gotten to that point, I’d still be there sitting there on the side of that bed, talking to my subconscious. There is a physiological moment you can feel when the power of faith takes over whatever you’re trying to do and says, “All right, now you can relax. That’s it.”

I went to bed, and about two o’clock in the morning, I woke up as if somebody had shaken me. As I came out of my sleep, Think and Grow Rich was in my mind. I let out a whoop, jumped to my typewriter, wrote it down, grabbed the telephone, and called the publisher. He answered, “What’s the matter, is the town on fire?” I said, “You bet it is, with a million-dollar title: Think and Grow Rich!” He immediately said, “Boy, you’ve got it!” and I’d say we got it. That book grossed over twenty-three million dollars already and probably will gross over a hundred million dollars before I pass on. There’s no end to it. A million-dollar title is already a multimillion-dollar title. After the thrashing I gave my subconscious, I’m not surprised.

Why didn’t I use that method in the first place? After all, I know the law. Why didn’t I go directly to the source and get my subconscious mind heated up instead of sitting down at my typewriter, writing out five or six hundred titles? I’ll tell you why. It’s 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’ll fool around until the last minute before you do anything about it. It’s the same with prayer. When a time of great need comes and you’re scared to death, you don’t get any results from prayer. To get results from prayer, you must condition your mind so that your life is a prayer. Day in and day out, every minute of your life is a constant prayer. Prayer is based on belief in your dignity—your right to tune into Infinite Intelligence to have the things that you need in this world.

So it is with this human mind. You’ve got to condition the mind as you go along from day to day, so that when any emergency arises, you’ll be right there ready to deal with it. Also, the definiteness of purpose induces one to budget one’s time and to plan day-to-day those endeavors that lead to the attainment of one’s major purpose. If you compare an hour-by-hour account of the actual work you put in each day for one week against an hour-by-hour account that you waste (but could devote to anything you want to, if you wanted to badly enough), you’d get one of the shocks of your life. We’re not efficient. You only have three sets of hours: about eight hours to sleep, about eight hours to earn a living, and about eight hours of free time to do anything that you want.

OPPORTUNITY APPEARS WHEN YOU LOOK FOR IT

Definiteness of purpose makes us more alert in recognizing opportunities related to the object of our major purpose. It inspires the courage to embrace and act upon those opportunities. It lets us see opportunities almost every day of our lives that could benefit us if only we embraced them and acted upon them. Unfortunately, there’s something in us we call prostration, which is a lack of will, alertness, or determination to embrace opportunities when they come along. If you condition your mind with this philosophy, you’ll not only embrace opportunities but you’ll do something better. What could you do better than embrace an opportunity? Make the opportunity.

The day before an attack, one of Napoleon’s generals told him that the conditions (the circumstances) were not just right for the planned morning attack. Napoleon responds, “Circumstances not right? Hell, I make circumstances! Attack!” I have never seen a successful man yet in any business that didn’t say attack when somebody says it can’t be done. Attack where you are. And when you get to that curve in the road that you can’t see until you get there, you’ll always find that the road keeps going around. Attack. Don’t procrastinate and don’t stand still. Attack.

PURPOSE INSPIRES CONFIDENCE

Definiteness of purpose inspires confidence in one’s integrity and character. It attracts the favorable attention of other people. Have you ever thought about that? I think the whole world loves to see a person walking with his chest sticking out, with an atmosphere that tells the whole doggone world that he knows what he’s doing and he is proud in doing it. People will get out of the way on the sidewalk and let you go by if you are determined to get by. You don’t even have to whistle at them, or holler at them, or anything of that kind. You just have to send your thoughts ahead, with determination that you’re going ahead proudly, and believe me, they stand aside and let you go through. The world’s like that.

The man who knows where he is going and is determined to get there will always encounter willing helpers to cooperate with him. The greatest of all the benefits of the definiteness of purpose is that it opens the way for the full exercise of that state of mind known as faith. It makes the mind positive and frees the mind from the limitations of fear, doubt, discouragement, indecision, and prostration. When you know what you want and you know what you’re going to do, at that very minute all of the negatives that have been bothering you will pick up their baggage and move out. They can’t live in a positive mind.

Can you imagine a negative and a positive frame of mind occupying the same space at the same time? No, you can’t, because it can’t be done. Did you know that the slightest bit of negative mental attitude is sufficient to destroy the power of prayer? Did you know that the slightest bit of a negative mental thought is sufficient to destroy your plan, whatever it is? You have to move with courage, faith, and determination in carrying out your definiteness of purpose.

THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SUCCESS

Definiteness of purpose also makes one success conscious. Do you know what I mean by “success conscious”? If I said it makes one health conscious, you’d probably know that I mean your thoughts are predominantly about health. With success consciousness, your thoughts are predominantly about success: the can-do part of life, not the no-can-do. Ninety-eight percent of the people (the ones we were talking about a while ago) never get anywhere because they are no-can-do people. No matter what circumstance is before them, they fasten their attention upon the no-can-do part, the negative part.

As long as I live, I’ll never forget when Mr. Carnegie surprised me and gave me the chance to organize this philosophy. I tried every way in the world to give him all the reasons I could think of that I couldn’t do it. I think I had six reasons why I couldn’t do it: I didn’t have sufficient education, I didn’t have the money, I didn’t have the influence, I didn’t know what the word philosophy meant. Two other reasons immediately popped into my mind as I was trying to get my mouth open to thank Mr. Carnegie for the compliment he’d paid me. In my mind, I doubted Mr. Carnegie was as good a judge of human nature as he was reported to be because he was picking me to do this job. However, something over my shoulder was telling me, “Go ahead. Tell him you can do it. Spit it out.” 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 and said, “I not only like what you said, I like the way you said it. That’s what I was waiting for.” He said 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 gain the assets necessary to create this philosophy. If I had wavered in the slightest and said, “Yes, Mr. Carnegie, I’ll do my best,” I am sure (though I never asked him) that he would have taken the opportunity away from me instantly. It would have indicated that I wasn’t too determined to do it. “Yes, Mr. Carnegie, you can depend upon me, sir, to complete it!” Although Mr. Carnegie’s long since gone, you are my witness that Mr. Carnegie didn’t pick wrongly. You know what he was about. He had found something in the human mind, and in my mind, that he’d been searching for years for. He found it. I didn’t know its value but I found out the value of it, and I want you to recognize the value of it. You have that same thing in your mind, that same capacity to know what you want and to be determined that you’ll get it, even though you don’t know where to make the first start.

What makes a great man? Do you have any idea what greatness is? Greatness is the ability to recognize the power of your own mind—to embrace it and use it. That’s what makes greatness. 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.

STEPS FOR CREATING YOUR DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE

Here are instructions for applying the principle of a definite major purpose. These instructions are to be carried out to the letter. Don’t overlook any part of them.

1. Write out a clear statement of your major purpose.

Sign it, commit it to memory, and repeat it orally 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 of you. I’ve found from experience that this is the weakest spot in the students’ activities. As they read this, they say, “Why, that’s simple enough. I understand it and what’s the use going to the trouble of writing it out?” You might just as well not have this lesson if you’re going to take that attitude to it. You must write it out, you must go through the physical act of translating a thought into words and onto paper. You must memorize it and start talking to your subconscious mind about it.

Give that subconscious mind a pretty good idea of what it is you want. It won’t hurt if you remember the story I told you about what I did to get my million-dollar book title. It won’t do a bit of harm if you command your subconscious mind to understand that, from here on out, you’re the boss and you’re going to do something about it. You can’t expect the subconscious mind, or anything else, to help you if you don’t know what it is you want and if you’re not definite about it. In a general cross-section of humanity, ninety-eight out of every hundred people do not know what they want in life and, consequently, never get it. They take whatever life hands them.

In addition to your definite major purpose, you can have minor purposes. You can have as many as you want, provided that 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. It’s all right to be modest like I am when you ask for what you want. Don’t be too modest. Reach out and ask for a bounty. Ask for the things that you are sure you are entitled to, but don’t overlook the subsequent instructions I’m going to give you about what it is you’re going to give in return for what you expect.

2. Write out a clear, definite outline of the plan (or plans) by which you intend to achieve the object of your purpose.

State the maximum time within which you intend to attain your purpose. Describe 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 any time you are inspired to do so. Remember 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 or you couldn’t explain away? Do you know what a hunch is? It’s your subconscious mind trying to get an idea over to you, though you’re often too indifferent to let the subconscious mind talk to you for a few moments. I’ve heard people say, “Well, I’ve had the darnedest fool idea today.” That “darn fool idea” might have been a million-dollar idea if you would have listened to it and had done something about it. 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. I find them always related to something that my mind’s been dwelling upon, something that I want to do, and something that I’m 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. That timing is very important. Don’t write out as your definite major aim 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 your major objective in life, write it out clearly and time it. “I intend to attain within blank number of years so-and-so.” Describe what so-and-so is. In the following paragraph, write, “I intend to give so-and-so in return for the thing that I request.” Now describe that, too.

As for the business of timing, nature has a system of timing everything. If you’re a farmer and you want to plant some wheat in the field, you prepare the ground. At the right season of the year, you sow the wheat, and the very next day, you go back with a harvester and start harvesting.

Did you notice the business of timing on that one? Before you can sow the wheat, you must wait for nature to do her part. Infinite Intelligence (or God, or whatever you want to call it) does Its part, if you do your part first. Intelligence is not going to direct you to, nor attract to you, the object of your major purpose unless you know what it is and unless you properly time it. It would be quite ridiculous if you started out with only a mediocre talent and said that you’re going to make a million dollars within the next thirty days. You must make your major purpose within reason of what you know you’re able to accomplish and deserve.

3. Keep your major purpose strictly to yourself.

You will receive further instructions on this subject in the lesson on the mastermind. Meanwhile, there’s an important reason that you don’t disclose your major purpose to other people. There are a lot of idle, curious people who like to stand on the sidelines and stick their toes out when you go by, especially if you’ve got a high head and look like you’re going to accomplish more in life than they are. They do this for no other reason than to just see you fall. They’ll throw monkey wrenches in your machinery and sand in your gearbox. They will slow you down because they harbor the envy of mankind. Therefore, the only way to speak about your definite major purpose is in action—after the fact, not before. Speak about it after you’ve achieved it. Let it speak for itself. The only way anybody can afford to boast or brag about himself is not by words but by deeds. If the deeds are already engaged, you don’t need words because the deeds speak for themselves.

4. Make your plan flexible.

Don’t become determined that the plan you 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.

5. Engage your conscious mind.

Call your major purpose into your conscious mind 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 can thus be influenced to work for its attainment while you sleep. Your conscious mind is a very jealous mind. It stands guard and doesn’t want anything to get by (to the subconscious), except for the things that you are afraid of and the things that you are enthusiastic about.

6. Add enthusiasm.

Generally speaking, if you want to plant an idea in your subconscious, you have to do it with a tremendous amount of faith and a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. You’ve got to rush the conscious mind with so much enthusiasm and faith that it steps aside and lets you go through to the subconscious.

7. Apply repetition.

Repetition is a marvelous thing. As you say a thing over and over and over, the conscious mind finally gets tired of hearing you say it. It says, “All right, if you’re bound to repeat that, I can’t stand here and watch you forever. Go on in there and take it into sub. See what he’ll do with it.” That’s the way it works. This conscious mind is a very contrary thing. Do you know it learns all of the things that won’t work? Do you know it has a tremendous stock of things that won’t work and things that are not right? It has a tremendous stock of useless trash that it’s gathered and that you don’t need: old pieces of string, horseshoes, nails like the ones misers gather up. It has a whole stock of those things lying around and that’s the kind of stuff that it’s feeding to your subconscious mind.

8. Put your subconscious to work.

Just before you go to bed each night, you should give your subconscious mind some sort of order for the night: what it is you want done. Maybe your order is for the healing of your body, because certainly the body needs repairing every day. When you lay your carcass down for sleep, your request will put your subconscious mind to work with Infinite Intelligence to heal every cell and every organ. By morning, it will give you a perfectly conditioned body in which the mind may function. Don’t go to bed without giving orders to your subconscious mind. Get in the habit of telling it what you want. If you keep on long enough, it’ll believe you and deliver what you’ve asked for. Therefore, you’d better be careful about what you ask for, because if you keep on asking for it, you’re going to get it.

I wonder if you would be surprised if you knew right now what you’ve been asking for back through the years. You’ve been asking for it. Everything that you have that you don’t want, you’ve been asking for it, maybe by neglect. Maybe you didn’t tell the subconscious mind what you really wanted and stocked up on a lot of stuff you didn’t want. It works that way.

9. Include your life purpose.

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 you desire to achieve and the fruits of which you are willing to leave behind as a monument to yourself. That’s what your major purpose should be. I’m not talking about your minor purposes. I’m talking about your major, overall purpose—your lifelong purpose. Believe me friends, if you don’t have an overall lifelong purpose, you’re wasting the better portion of your life. The wear and tear of 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 plane. I imagine you were sent over here to do something. I imagine you were sent over here with a mind capable of hewing out and attaining your destiny. 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.

10. Engage the power of your mind.

Take possession of your mind. Aim high. Don’t believe because you may not have achieved much in the past that you can’t achieve in the future. Don’t measure your future by your past. If you do, you’re sunk. A new day is coming. You’re going to be born again. You’re setting up a new pattern. You’re in a new world and you’re a new person. I intend that every one of you shall be born again—mentally, physically, and maybe spiritually. You shall be born to 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 ask 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? I believe the greatest sin of mankind is neglecting to use his greatest asset—because if you’ll use that greatest asset, you’ll have everything you want and you’ll have it in abundance. Notice that 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 put 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 sets up limitations for yourself. Nobody can do it for you unless you let them.

11. Let your purpose grow.

Your major purpose, or some portion of it, should remain a few jumps ahead of you at all times. It should be 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 are you going to do when you get there? Get another one, of course. You will have learned by having attained the first one that you can attain a major purpose. Chances are, when you select the next one, you’ll make it a bigger objective than you did for your first one. If your objective is to acquire riches, don’t aim too high for the first year. Work out a twelve-month plan within reason, watch how easily you can attain it, and then next year, double it. And then the next year, double that. One’s major purpose should keep a few jumps ahead of him. Why? Why not allow a definite purpose that you can catch up with by tomorrow? Obviously, if you do that, your definite major purpose is not going to be very extensive, is it?

A bigger purpose is going to have the fun of pursuit. Pursuit is a great thing. After you’ve found success, or after you found your objective, there’s no fun in it until you turn around and start after something else. Life is less interesting when one has no definite purpose to be obtained other than that of merely living. The hope of future achievement of a major purpose is among the greatest of man’s pleasures. Indeed, sorry is the man who has caught up with himself and no longer has anything to do. I’ve found a lot of them and they’re all miserable. You’ve got to keep active, keep doing something, keep working, and keep an objective ahead of you.

One’s major purpose may (and it generally does) consist of that which can be attained only by a series of day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year steps. It is something that should be so designed as to consume an entire lifetime of happy endeavor. It should harmonize with one’s occupation, business, or profession, because each day’s work should enable one to come one day nearer to the attainment of his major purpose in life. I feel sorry for the individual who is just working day in and day out in order to have something to eat, some clothes to wear, and a place to sleep. I feel sorry for anyone who has no aim beyond having just enough to exist on. I can’t imagine anybody in this lecture class being satisfied by existence alone. I think you want to live. I think you want abundance. I think you want everything that’s necessary for you to do the thing you want to do in life, including money.

One’s major purpose may consist of many different combinations of lesser aims, such as the nature of one’s occupation, which should be something of your own choice when you come to write out your definite major purpose. Write it out like planks in a platform: number one so-and-so, number two so-and-so.

HARMONIOUS RELATIONSHIPS

Be sure that you include in your major purpose perfect harmony between yourself and your mate. 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? I’ll answer that one for you: of course you don’t. Nobody does. Have you ever heard of a relationship of man and wife where there was not harmony? I’ll answer that for you too: I know you have. It’s not pleasant to even be around people who are not in step with one another. You can be harmonious and that is where you ought to be 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 that’s nice, too. I don’t know of anything I ever did in my life that I enjoyed as much as courting. It’s a wonderful experience. Go back and court the gal over again (or the man).

If you’re not on the right kind of terms with your business, or your fellow worker, or the people you work with every day, go back and rededicate yourself to the business of striking off on a new basis. You’ll be surprised at what a little confession on your part will do. Wonderful thing the confession is. Most people claim they have too much pride to confess their weaknesses. I tell you it’s a good thing to get that out and to get some of your weaknesses out of your system by confession. Acknowledge that maybe you’re not perfect, nigh perfect, but not entirely perfect. Maybe the other fellow will say, “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 in contact with every day, whoever they may be. What a wonderful thing it is. You can do that. You can handle it. I know you can. Most inharmonious human relationships are due to the neglect of people. Maybe you’ve neglected to build up your human relationships, but you could change that if you wanted to.

Part of your definite major purpose should be the budgeting of income and expenses—to provide for the accumulation of a definite security now, for old age, for the security of loved ones, and so forth. Include the budgeting of time so as to provide whatever income is necessary to support one’s plan for the attainment of a definite major purpose.