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Chapter One

Definiteness of Purpose

Through the lessons of this book you will be provided with usable knowledge that would cost you a huge fortune if you acquired it, as it was originally organized, from the minds of Andrew Carnegie and more than five hundred other distinguished leaders in American business and industry. Among the persons whose successful experience is published here are Henry Ford, Thomas A. Edison, Stuart Austin Wier, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, Edward Bok, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, Dr. Elmer R. Gates, John Wanamaker, James J. Hill, Edwin C. Barnes, William Howard Taft, Charles M. Schwab, Theodore Roosevelt, Elbert H. Gary, Charles P. Steinmetz, and Woodrow Wilson.

For all practical purposes you may assume that you are now entering a classroom in which your teachers will consist of more than five hundred of the men who have made America the "richest and freest" country known to civilization. Moreover, you will be privileged to acquire in this book the same knowledge that would have required over ten years of intense study had you procured it from its original source.

Through this book you will be schooled in an entire philosophy of success, complete and adequate in every respect for the needs of any person seeking the privilege of self-determination under the great American system of personal advancement. You will receive instruction that is not available at any price nor under any circumstances through any other source.

These lessons have been presented in a manner best suited to enable you to assimilate the knowledge they convey, with no effort on your part beyond a sincere desire to avail yourself of the secrets of achievement which are known to have been the foundation of almost all of the successful business leaders this country has produced.

In thus departing from the usual academic style of presenting knowledge, the author has kept in mind the fact that this book is for men and women in all walks of life, whose educational background, occupation, and family responsibilities make it necessary for them to acquire practical knowledge by the shortest and quickest method available. The author has had in mind, too, the fact that this book is intended as a "family" schooling and should therefore be presented in an easy, readable style that will be interesting to young men and young women who have not yet finished high school or college as well as to the adult members of the family. Every principle of individual achievement here presented has been tested and tried in the great crucible of practical experience.

You can read these lessons in a few hours, but more than thirty years of careful research made it possible for you to do this. Moreover, this research was carried on by practical business men who acquired their experience by the trial and error method, over a long period of years.

Read slowly and digest that which you read, as you go along. The most important part is not in these lessons but in your mind. The major purpose of this chapter is not that of suggesting to you what your definite goal in life should be but rather to bring to your attention the necessity of your choosing a major objective as a starting point toward individual achievement.

Mark the paragraphs which impress you most as you read and come back to these for a more detailed analysis when time permits. It will be helpful if two or more people form a study club for the purpose of reading and analyzing the lessons together. The benefits of this plan will become more obvious after you finish the lesson on the Master Mind in the next chapter.

Somewhere in this book, you will find yourself-that "other self," which will throw off all the chains of limitation that previously bound you and reveal to you a veritable giant of power asleep in your brain, needing only some outside force to awaken it. You will find this awakening force. It will come in the form of an idea that you will pick up as you read and think.

To begin with, there are 17 major principles of success and every person who attains the objective of his major goal, in any undertaking, must use some combination of these principles. I shall name first, the most important. It stands at the head of the list of the 17 principles of achievement because no one has ever been known to succeed without applying it. You may call it the principle of Definiteness of Purpose. Study any person who is known to be a permanent success and you will find that he has a Definite Major Goal; he has a plan for the attainment of this goal; he devotes the major portion of his thoughts and his efforts to the attainment of this purpose.

Everyone wishes for the better things of life, such as money, a good position, fame, and recognition; but most people never go far beyond the "wishing" stage. Men who know exactly what they want of life and are determined to get it do not stop with wishing. They intensify their wishes into a Burning Desire, and back that desire with continuous effort based on a sound plan.

The first step from poverty to riches is the most difficult.

All riches and all material things that anyone acquires through self-effort begin in the form of a clear, concise mental picture of the thing one seeks. When that picture grows, or has been forced to the proportions of an obsession, it is taken over by the sub-conscious mind through some hidden law of nature. From that point on one is drawn, attracted, or guided in the direction of the physical equivalent of the mental picture. I shall come back to this subject of the subconscious mind many times before we finish, as it is one of the vital factors in connection with all outstanding achievements.

It has long been a mystery to some people why men with little or no schooling often succeed, while men with extensive schooling often fail. Look carefully and you will discover that great successes are the result of understanding and the use of a positive mental attitude through which nature aids men in converting their aims and purposes into their physical and financial equivalent. Mental attitude is the quality of mind which gives power to one's thoughts and plans.

The length of time which it takes for one's mental attitude to begin attracting the physical and financial requisites of one's major purpose depends entirely upon the nature and extent of one's desires and the control one exercises over his mind in keeping it free from fear and doubt and self-imposed limitations. This sort of control comes through constant vigilance, wherein one keeps his mind free of all negative thoughts and leaves it open for the influx and the guidance of Infinite Intelligence. Definiteness of purpose involving a hundred dollars, for example, might be translated into its financial equivalent in a few days, or even a few hours, or a few minutes, whereas, desire for a million dollars might call for considerably more time, depending to some extent on what one had to give in return for the million dollars.

The best way to describe the time necessary for the translation of a definite purpose into its physical or financial equivalent can be accurately stated by determining the exact time necessary to deliver the service, or the equivalent in value one intends to give in return for the object of that purpose.

Before I finish describing the most important principles of achievement, I hope to be able to prove to you that there is a definite connection between giving and getting. Generally speaking, riches and material things that men get are the effect of some form of useful service they have rendered.

The only known way of insuring that a definite purpose will be carried out to a full realization, through the forces of natural law working through the minds of men, is by first establishing a cause for such realization, through useful service, rendered in a spirit of harmony.

A well-disciplined mind is capable of holding and acting upon a definite major purpose without any form of outside, or artificial aid. The undisciplined mind needs a crutch to lean upon while dealing with a definite major purpose. The best method to be followed, by one with an undisciplined mind, is that of writing down a complete description of one's major purpose and then adopting the habit of reading it aloud at least once every day. The act of writing down one's major purposes forces one to be specific as to its nature. The act of habitual reading fixes the nature of the purpose in the mind, where it can be picked up by the sub-conscious mind and acted upon.

The good there is in money consists of the use to which it is put and not in the mere possession of it. Generally speaking, the man who earns his own money acquires, along with it some of the necessary wisdom as to its constructive use.

If you want a practical illustration of this reasoning, look at what happens to the boy or girl who is brought up by rich parents and is made to feel from early childhood that individual effort in the accumulation of riches is unnecessary. I have never known of a single instance in which a boy brought up in this fashion came within sight of the business acumen and achievements of his father. The real joy of having money comes from earning it; not from receiving it as a gift.

We have more opportunities in America for the making of fortunes in return for useful service than in all other countries combined. This is a new country. Our resources have only been tapped. Every day brings on new endeavors to open hundreds of new roads of opportunity: Today it's the automobile and the aeroplane-industries in their infancy. Their development opens fields for thousands of young men with imagination, skill, and initiative.

Our only lack of opportunities is going to be a shortage of imagination, self-reliance and initiative which will be needed to man the future of this country. The whole world is turning to America for new ideas, new inventions, new opportunities for skill and imagination. Look around you everywhere and you will see that this is but the budding age of stupendous opportunity on every hand.

In the field of Life Insurance there will be great opportunities for men and women to render useful service and make themselves financially independent. The institution of Life Insurance is rapidly becoming the major medium for the development of the habit of saving for millions of our people. The Life Insurance agent of the future will become a teacher as well as a salesman; he will teach people to budget their time and their expenditures by systematic investment in insurance. Keep your eyes on this field, because it represents one of the major pillars of our great American economic system. It will give profitable employment to hundreds of thousands of men and women whose services to the people will be no less useful than the services of the clergymen, or the school teachers. The selling of Life Insurance will become one of the most recognized professions that will pay as well as or better than most of the learned professions. The sale of Life Insurance will be reduced to a science, and eventually it will be taught in the colleges.

A man's achievements correspond with unerring certainty to the philosophy with which he relates himself to others. If you follow through your willingness to give something in return for the knowledge you desire, you are certain to make yourself so useful to the world that it will be compelled to reward you in terms of your own choice. This is the spirit of true Americanism.

Every person who seeks personal success in America should both understand and respect the fundamentals of Americanism. Those who neglect or refuse to give loyal support to the institutions of Americanism may unconsciously contribute to the downfall of these supporting pillars, thereby cutting the very foundation from under their own opportunities for personal achievement. It is obvious that no individual may enjoy permanent success if he is out of step with the forces which have given him his opportunity to succeed.

The Six Pillars of Americanism

You can best describe Americanism by analyzing the six major pillars which distinguish this country from all others, viz.:

1.    Our American form of Government, as it was originally written into the Constitution of the United States, providing the fullest possible measure of right to individual liberty, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and above all, freedom of individual initiative that gives to every citizen the privilege of choosing his own occupation and setting his own price upon his knowledge, skill, and experience. No other country in the world offers its citizens such an abundant choice of opportunities for the marketing of his services as those provided under our form of government.

2.    Our Industrial System, with its matchless natural resources of leadership and raw materials, coordinated, as it is, with our American spirit of Democracy, and supported by our American form of Government through which it is protected in every manner possible from the competition of other countries. So long as there is harmony and understanding and sympathetic cooperation between leaders of industry and the officials of our government, every citizen will benefit, directly or indirectly, by our expanding industrial system. If the time ever comes when the leaders of the government and the leaders of industry neglect or refuse to work in harmony toward a common end, the weight of their short-sightedness will fall heavily on the economic life of every citizen. This is definitely becoming an industrial nation. Industry not only supplies a major portion of the income for men who work for wages, but it absorbs a major portion of the products of agriculture, and it is the major source of support for lawyers, doctors, dentists, engineers, educators, churches and others engaged in professional work. There is no way of separating "Americanism" from industry without destroying one of the strongest and most important of the six pillars.

3.    Our Banking System, providing, as it does, the life-blood which keeps our industrial system and our agriculture and our business and professional systems active and flexible at a cost that is not a burden to anyone. Understand the nature of the service being rendered by our banking system and you will be forever done with the ignorant few who cry out against the imaginary sins of "Wall Street." Every well-informed person knows that in this country we have a twin-system of government, with a political division operating in Washington and a financial division operating in New York. When these two branches of our form of national life operate harmoniously, we have prosperous times. Moreover, we have the resources of both political and financial economy to compete successfully with any other country in the world. When these two branches of our national life become antagonistic, as they have done from time to time in the past, we are cursed with "panics" and other ills that damage every citizen. The Banking Houses are just as essential to the successful operation of our system of living as are the merchandising stores and business offices. As a matter of fact, no form of merchandising or business could be carried on successfully without access to a ready supply of cash or credit, which the banks supply.