INTRODUCTION
THE MASTER MIND
“You Can Do It If You Believe You Can!”
This is a course on the fundamentals of Success.
Success is verylargely a matter of adjusting one’s self to the ever-varying and changingenvironments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise. Harmony is based uponunderstanding of the forces constituting one’s environment; therefore, thiscourse is in reality a blueprint that may be followed straight to success,because it helps the student to interpret, understand and make the most ofthese environmental forces of life.
Before you beginreading the Law of Success lessons you should know something of the history ofthe course. You should know exactly what the course promises to those whofollow it until they have assimilated the laws and principles upon which it isbased. You should know its limitations as well as its possibilities as an aidin your fight for a place in the world.
From theviewpoint of entertainment the Law of Success course would be a poor second formost any of the monthly periodicals of the “Snappy Story” variety which may befound upon the news stands of today.
The course hasbeen created for the serious-minded person who devotes at least a portion ofhis or her time to the business of succeeding in life. The author of the Law ofSuccess course has not intended to compete with those who write purely for thepurpose of entertaining.
The author’s aim,in preparing this course, has been of a two-fold nature, namely, first—to helpthe earnest student find out what are his or her weaknesses, and, secondly—tohelp create a DEFINITE PLAN for bridging those weaknesses.
The mostsuccessful men and women on earth have had to correct certain weak spots intheir personalities before they began to succeed. The most outstanding of theseweaknesses which stand between men and women and success are INTOLERANCE,CUPIDITY, GREED, JEALOUSY, SUSPICION, REVENGE, EGOTISM, CONCEIT, THE TENDENCYTO REAP WHERE THEY HAVE NOT SOWN, and the HABIT OF SPENDING MORE THAN THEYEARN.
All of thesecommon enemies of mankind, and many more not here mentioned, are covered by theLaw of Success course in such a manner that any person of reasonableintelligence may master them with but little effort or inconvenience.
You should know,at the very outset, that the Law of Success course has long since passedthrough the experimental state; that it already has to its credit a record ofachievement that is worthy of serious thought and analysis. You should know,also, that the Law of Success course has been examined and endorsed by some ofthe most practical minds of this generation.
The Law ofSuccess course was first used as a lecture, and was delivered by its author inpractically every city and in many of the smaller localities, throughout theUnited States, over a period of more than seven years. Perhaps you were one ofthe many hundreds of thousands of people who heard this lecture.
During theselectures the author had assistants located in the audiences for the purpose ofinterpreting the reaction of those who heard the lecture, and in this manner helearned exactly what effect it had upon people. As a result of this study andanalysis many changes were made.
The first bigvictory was gained for the Law of Success philosophy when it was used by theauthor as the basis of a course with which 3,000 men and women were trained asa sales army. The majority of these people were without previous experience, ofany sort, in the field of selling. Through this training they were enabled toearn more than One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00) for themselves and paid theauthor $30,000.00 for his services, covering a period of approximately sixmonths.
The individualsand small groups of salespeople who have found success through the aid of thiscourse are too numerous to be mentioned in this Introduction, but the number islarge and the benefits they derived from the course were definite.
The Law ofSuccess philosophy was brought to the attention of the late Don R. Mellett,former publisher of the Canton (Ohio) Daily News, who formed a partnership withthe author of the course and was preparing to resign as publisher of the CantonDaily News and take up the business management of the author’s affairs when hewas assassinated on July 16, 1926.
Prior to hisdeath Mr. Mellett had made arrangements with Judge Elbert H. Gary, who was thenChairman of the Board of the United States Steel Corporation, to present theLaw of Success course to every employee of the Steel Corporation, at a totalcost of something like $150,000.00. This plan was halted because of JudgeGary’s death, but it proves that the author of the Law of Success has producedan educational plan of an enduring nature. Judge Gary was eminently prepared tojudge the value of such a course, and the fact that he analyzed the Law ofSuccess philosophy and was preparing to invest the huge sum of $150,000.00 init is proof of the soundness of all that is said in behalf of the course.
You will observe,in this General Introduction to the course, a few technical terms which may notbe plain to you. Do not allow this to bother you. Make no attempt at firstreading to understand these terms. They will be plain to you after you read theremainder of the course. This entire Introduction is intended only as abackground for the other fourteen lessons of the course, and you should read itas such. You will not be examined on this Introduction, but you should read itmany times, as you will get from it at each reading a thought or an idea whichyou did not get on previous readings.
In thisIntroduction you will find a description of a newly discovered law ofpsychology which is the very foundation stone of all outstanding personalachievements. This law has been referred to by the author as the “Master Mind,”meaning a mind that is developed through the harmonious co-operation of two ormore people who ally themselves for the purpose of accomplishing any giventask.
If you areengaged in the business of selling you may profitably experiment with this lawof the “Master Mind” in your daily work. It has been found that a group of sixor seven salespeople may use the law so effectively that their sales may beincreased to unbelievable proportions.
Life Insurance issupposed to be the hardest thing on earth to sell. This ought not to be true,with an established necessity such as life insurance, but it is. Despite thisfact, a small group of men working for the Prudential Life Insurance Company,whose sales are mostly small policies, formed a little friendly group for thepurpose of experimenting with the law of the “Master Mind,” with the resultthat every man in the group wrote more insurance during the first three monthsof the experiment than he had ever written in an entire year before.
What may beaccomplished through the aid of this principle, by any small group ofintelligent life-insurance salesmen who have learned how to apply the law ofthe “Master Mind” will stagger the imagination of the most highly optimisticand imaginative person.
The same may besaid of other groups of salespeople who are engaged in selling merchandise andother more tangible forms of service than life insurance. Bear this in mind asyou read this Introduction to the Law of Success course and it is notunreasonable to expect that this Introduction, alone, may give you sufficientunderstanding of the law to change the entire course of your life.
It is thepersonalities back of a business which determine the measure of success thebusiness will enjoy. Modify those personalities so they are more pleasing andmore attractive to the patrons of the business and the business will thrive. Inany of the great cities of the United States one may purchase merchandise ofsimilar nature and price in scores of stores, yet you will find there is alwaysone outstanding store which does more business than any of the others, and thereason for this is that back of that store is a man, or men, who has attendedto the personalities of those who come in contact with the public. People buypersonalities as much as merchandise, and it is a question if they are notinfluenced more by the personalities with which they come in contact than theyare by the merchandise.
Life insurancehas been reduced to such a scientific basis that the cost of insurance does notvary to any great extent, regardless of the company from which one purchasesit, yet out of the hundreds of life insurance companies doing business lessthan a dozen companies do the bulk of the business of the United States.
Why?Personalities! Ninety-nine people out of every hundred who purchase lifeinsurance policies do not know what is in their policies and, what seems morestartling, do not seem to care. What they really purchase is the pleasingpersonality of some man or woman who knows the value of cultivating such apersonality.
Your business inlife, or at least the most important part of it, is to achieve success.Success, within the meaning of that term as covered by this course on theFifteen Laws of Success, is “the attainment of your Definite Chief Aim withoutviolating the rights of other people.” Regardless of what your major aim inlife may be, you will attain it with much less difficulty after you learn howto cultivate a pleasing personality and after you have learned the delicate artof allying yourself with others in a given undertaking without friction orenvy.
One of thegreatest problems of life, if not, in fact, the greatest, is that of learningthe art of harmonious negotiation with others. This course was created for thepurpose of teaching people how to negotiate their way through life with harmonyand poise, free from the destructive effects of disagreement and friction whichbring millions of people to misery, want and failure every year.
With thisstatement of the purpose of the course you should be able to approach thelessons with the feeling that a complete transformation is about to take placein your personality.
You cannot enjoyoutstanding success in life without power, and you can never enjoy powerwithout sufficient personality to influence other people to co-operate with youin a spirit of harmony. This course shows you step by step how to develop sucha personality.
Lesson by lesson,the following is a statement of that which you may expect to receive from theFifteen Laws of Success:
I. A DEFINITECHIEF AIM will teach you how to save the wasted effort which the majority ofpeople expend in trying to find their life-work. This lesson will show you howto do away forever with aimlessness and fix your heart and hand upon somedefinite, well conceived purpose as a life-work.
II.SELF-CONFIDENCE will help you master the six basic fears with which everyperson is cursed—the fear of Poverty, the fear of Ill Health, the fear of OldAge, the fear of Criticism, the fear of Loss of Love of Someone and the fear ofDeath. It will teach you the difference between egotism and realself-confidence which is based upon definite, usable knowledge.
III. THE HABIT OFSAVING will teach you how to distribute your income systematically so that adefinite percentage of it will steadily accumulate, thus forming one of thegreatest known sources of personal power. No one may succeed in life withoutsaving money. There is no exception to this rule, and no one may escape it.
IV. INITIATIVEAND LEADERSHIP will show you how to become a leader instead of a follower inyour chosen field of endeavor. It will develop in you the instinct forleadership which will cause you gradually to gravitate to the top in allundertakings in which you participate.
V. IMAGINATIONwill stimulate your mind so that you will conceive new ideas and develop newplans which will help you in attaining the object of your Definite Chief Aim.This lesson will teach you how to “build new houses out of old stones,” so tospeak. It will show you how to create new ideas out of old, well knownconcepts, and how to put old ideas to new uses. This one lesson, alone, is theequivalent of a very practical course in salesmanship, and it is sure to provea veritable gold mine of knowledge to the person who is in earnest.
VI. ENTHUSIASMwill enable you to “saturate” all with whom you come in contact with interestin you and in your ideas. Enthusiasm is the foundation of a PleasingPersonality, and you must have such a personality in order to influence othersto co-operate with you.
VII. SELF-CONTROLis the “balance wheel” with which you control your enthusiasm and direct itwhere you wish it to carry you. This lesson will teach you, in a most practicalmanner, to become “the master of your fate, the Captain of your Soul.”
VIII. THE HABITOF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR is one of the most important lessons of the Law ofSuccess course. It will teach you how to take advantage of the Law ofIncreasing Returns, which will eventually insure you a return in money far outof proportion to the service you render. No one may become a real leader in anywalk of life without practicing the habit of doing more work and better workthan that for which he is paid.
IX. PLEASINGPERSONALITY is the “fulcrum” on which you must place the “crow-bar” of yourefforts, and when so placed, with intelligence, it will enable you to removemountains of obstacles. This one lesson, alone, has made scores of MasterSalesmen. It has developed leaders over night. It will teach you how totransform your personality so that you may adapt yourself to any environment,or to any other personality, in such a manner that you may easily dominate.
X. ACCURATETHOUGHT is one of the important foundation stones of all enduring success. Thislesson teaches you how to separate “facts” from mere “information.” It teachesyou how to organize known facts into two classes: the “important” and the“unimportant.” It teaches you how to determine what is an “important” fact. Itteaches you how to build definite working plans, in the pursuit of any calling,out of FACTS.
INTRODUCTION
THE MASTER MIND
“You Can Do It If You Believe You Can!”
This is a course on the fundamentals of Success.
Success is verylargely a matter of adjusting one’s self to the ever-varying and changingenvironments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise. Harmony is based uponunderstanding of the forces constituting one’s environment; therefore, thiscourse is in reality a blueprint that may be followed straight to success,because it helps the student to interpret, understand and make the most ofthese environmental forces of life.
Before you beginreading the Law of Success lessons you should know something of the history ofthe course. You should know exactly what the course promises to those whofollow it until they have assimilated the laws and principles upon which it isbased. You should know its limitations as well as its possibilities as an aidin your fight for a place in the world.
From theviewpoint of entertainment the Law of Success course would be a poor second formost any of the monthly periodicals of the “Snappy Story” variety which may befound upon the news stands of today.
The course hasbeen created for the serious-minded person who devotes at least a portion ofhis or her time to the business of succeeding in life. The author of the Law ofSuccess course has not intended to compete with those who write purely for thepurpose of entertaining.
The author’s aim,in preparing this course, has been of a two-fold nature, namely, first—to helpthe earnest student find out what are his or her weaknesses, and, secondly—tohelp create a DEFINITE PLAN for bridging those weaknesses.
The mostsuccessful men and women on earth have had to correct certain weak spots intheir personalities before they began to succeed. The most outstanding of theseweaknesses which stand between men and women and success are INTOLERANCE,CUPIDITY, GREED, JEALOUSY, SUSPICION, REVENGE, EGOTISM, CONCEIT, THE TENDENCYTO REAP WHERE THEY HAVE NOT SOWN, and the HABIT OF SPENDING MORE THAN THEYEARN.
All of thesecommon enemies of mankind, and many more not here mentioned, are covered by theLaw of Success course in such a manner that any person of reasonableintelligence may master them with but little effort or inconvenience.
You should know,at the very outset, that the Law of Success course has long since passedthrough the experimental state; that it already has to its credit a record ofachievement that is worthy of serious thought and analysis. You should know,also, that the Law of Success course has been examined and endorsed by some ofthe most practical minds of this generation.
The Law ofSuccess course was first used as a lecture, and was delivered by its author inpractically every city and in many of the smaller localities, throughout theUnited States, over a period of more than seven years. Perhaps you were one ofthe many hundreds of thousands of people who heard this lecture.
During theselectures the author had assistants located in the audiences for the purpose ofinterpreting the reaction of those who heard the lecture, and in this manner helearned exactly what effect it had upon people. As a result of this study andanalysis many changes were made.
The first bigvictory was gained for the Law of Success philosophy when it was used by theauthor as the basis of a course with which 3,000 men and women were trained asa sales army. The majority of these people were without previous experience, ofany sort, in the field of selling. Through this training they were enabled toearn more than One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00) for themselves and paid theauthor $30,000.00 for his services, covering a period of approximately sixmonths.
The individualsand small groups of salespeople who have found success through the aid of thiscourse are too numerous to be mentioned in this Introduction, but the number islarge and the benefits they derived from the course were definite.
The Law ofSuccess philosophy was brought to the attention of the late Don R. Mellett,former publisher of the Canton (Ohio) Daily News, who formed a partnership withthe author of the course and was preparing to resign as publisher of the CantonDaily News and take up the business management of the author’s affairs when hewas assassinated on July 16, 1926.
Prior to hisdeath Mr. Mellett had made arrangements with Judge Elbert H. Gary, who was thenChairman of the Board of the United States Steel Corporation, to present theLaw of Success course to every employee of the Steel Corporation, at a totalcost of something like $150,000.00. This plan was halted because of JudgeGary’s death, but it proves that the author of the Law of Success has producedan educational plan of an enduring nature. Judge Gary was eminently prepared tojudge the value of such a course, and the fact that he analyzed the Law ofSuccess philosophy and was preparing to invest the huge sum of $150,000.00 init is proof of the soundness of all that is said in behalf of the course.
You will observe,in this General Introduction to the course, a few technical terms which may notbe plain to you. Do not allow this to bother you. Make no attempt at firstreading to understand these terms. They will be plain to you after you read theremainder of the course. This entire Introduction is intended only as abackground for the other fourteen lessons of the course, and you should read itas such. You will not be examined on this Introduction, but you should read itmany times, as you will get from it at each reading a thought or an idea whichyou did not get on previous readings.
In thisIntroduction you will find a description of a newly discovered law ofpsychology which is the very foundation stone of all outstanding personalachievements. This law has been referred to by the author as the “Master Mind,”meaning a mind that is developed through the harmonious co-operation of two ormore people who ally themselves for the purpose of accomplishing any giventask.
If you areengaged in the business of selling you may profitably experiment with this lawof the “Master Mind” in your daily work. It has been found that a group of sixor seven salespeople may use the law so effectively that their sales may beincreased to unbelievable proportions.
Life Insurance issupposed to be the hardest thing on earth to sell. This ought not to be true,with an established necessity such as life insurance, but it is. Despite thisfact, a small group of men working for the Prudential Life Insurance Company,whose sales are mostly small policies, formed a little friendly group for thepurpose of experimenting with the law of the “Master Mind,” with the resultthat every man in the group wrote more insurance during the first three monthsof the experiment than he had ever written in an entire year before.
What may beaccomplished through the aid of this principle, by any small group ofintelligent life-insurance salesmen who have learned how to apply the law ofthe “Master Mind” will stagger the imagination of the most highly optimisticand imaginative person.
The same may besaid of other groups of salespeople who are engaged in selling merchandise andother more tangible forms of service than life insurance. Bear this in mind asyou read this Introduction to the Law of Success course and it is notunreasonable to expect that this Introduction, alone, may give you sufficientunderstanding of the law to change the entire course of your life.
It is thepersonalities back of a business which determine the measure of success thebusiness will enjoy. Modify those personalities so they are more pleasing andmore attractive to the patrons of the business and the business will thrive. Inany of the great cities of the United States one may purchase merchandise ofsimilar nature and price in scores of stores, yet you will find there is alwaysone outstanding store which does more business than any of the others, and thereason for this is that back of that store is a man, or men, who has attendedto the personalities of those who come in contact with the public. People buypersonalities as much as merchandise, and it is a question if they are notinfluenced more by the personalities with which they come in contact than theyare by the merchandise.
Life insurancehas been reduced to such a scientific basis that the cost of insurance does notvary to any great extent, regardless of the company from which one purchasesit, yet out of the hundreds of life insurance companies doing business lessthan a dozen companies do the bulk of the business of the United States.
Why?Personalities! Ninety-nine people out of every hundred who purchase lifeinsurance policies do not know what is in their policies and, what seems morestartling, do not seem to care. What they really purchase is the pleasingpersonality of some man or woman who knows the value of cultivating such apersonality.
Your business inlife, or at least the most important part of it, is to achieve success.Success, within the meaning of that term as covered by this course on theFifteen Laws of Success, is “the attainment of your Definite Chief Aim withoutviolating the rights of other people.” Regardless of what your major aim inlife may be, you will attain it with much less difficulty after you learn howto cultivate a pleasing personality and after you have learned the delicate artof allying yourself with others in a given undertaking without friction orenvy.
One of thegreatest problems of life, if not, in fact, the greatest, is that of learningthe art of harmonious negotiation with others. This course was created for thepurpose of teaching people how to negotiate their way through life with harmonyand poise, free from the destructive effects of disagreement and friction whichbring millions of people to misery, want and failure every year.
With thisstatement of the purpose of the course you should be able to approach thelessons with the feeling that a complete transformation is about to take placein your personality.
You cannot enjoyoutstanding success in life without power, and you can never enjoy powerwithout sufficient personality to influence other people to co-operate with youin a spirit of harmony. This course shows you step by step how to develop sucha personality.
Lesson by lesson,the following is a statement of that which you may expect to receive from theFifteen Laws of Success:
I. A DEFINITECHIEF AIM will teach you how to save the wasted effort which the majority ofpeople expend in trying to find their life-work. This lesson will show you howto do away forever with aimlessness and fix your heart and hand upon somedefinite, well conceived purpose as a life-work.
II.SELF-CONFIDENCE will help you master the six basic fears with which everyperson is cursed—the fear of Poverty, the fear of Ill Health, the fear of OldAge, the fear of Criticism, the fear of Loss of Love of Someone and the fear ofDeath. It will teach you the difference between egotism and realself-confidence which is based upon definite, usable knowledge.
III. THE HABIT OFSAVING will teach you how to distribute your income systematically so that adefinite percentage of it will steadily accumulate, thus forming one of thegreatest known sources of personal power. No one may succeed in life withoutsaving money. There is no exception to this rule, and no one may escape it.
IV. INITIATIVEAND LEADERSHIP will show you how to become a leader instead of a follower inyour chosen field of endeavor. It will develop in you the instinct forleadership which will cause you gradually to gravitate to the top in allundertakings in which you participate.
V. IMAGINATIONwill stimulate your mind so that you will conceive new ideas and develop newplans which will help you in attaining the object of your Definite Chief Aim.This lesson will teach you how to “build new houses out of old stones,” so tospeak. It will show you how to create new ideas out of old, well knownconcepts, and how to put old ideas to new uses. This one lesson, alone, is theequivalent of a very practical course in salesmanship, and it is sure to provea veritable gold mine of knowledge to the person who is in earnest.
VI. ENTHUSIASMwill enable you to “saturate” all with whom you come in contact with interestin you and in your ideas. Enthusiasm is the foundation of a PleasingPersonality, and you must have such a personality in order to influence othersto co-operate with you.
VII. SELF-CONTROLis the “balance wheel” with which you control your enthusiasm and direct itwhere you wish it to carry you. This lesson will teach you, in a most practicalmanner, to become “the master of your fate, the Captain of your Soul.”
VIII. THE HABITOF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR is one of the most important lessons of the Law ofSuccess course. It will teach you how to take advantage of the Law ofIncreasing Returns, which will eventually insure you a return in money far outof proportion to the service you render. No one may become a real leader in anywalk of life without practicing the habit of doing more work and better workthan that for which he is paid.
IX. PLEASINGPERSONALITY is the “fulcrum” on which you must place the “crow-bar” of yourefforts, and when so placed, with intelligence, it will enable you to removemountains of obstacles. This one lesson, alone, has made scores of MasterSalesmen. It has developed leaders over night. It will teach you how totransform your personality so that you may adapt yourself to any environment,or to any other personality, in such a manner that you may easily dominate.
X. ACCURATETHOUGHT is one of the important foundation stones of all enduring success. Thislesson teaches you how to separate “facts” from mere “information.” It teachesyou how to organize known facts into two classes: the “important” and the“unimportant.” It teaches you how to determine what is an “important” fact. Itteaches you how to build definite working plans, in the pursuit of any calling,out of FACTS.
