The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran
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all have inspired moments when we see clearly how we may do great things, how we may accomplish wonderful undertakings. But we do not believe in them enough to make them come true. An imagination, which begins and ends in daydreaming, is weakening to character.
Make the daydreams come true. Make them so clear and distinct that they impress themselves upon your subconscious mind. There’s nothing wrong with daydreaming, except that most of us stop there. We don’t try to make the dreams come true. The great inventor, Tesla, “dreams” every new machine complete and perfect in every particular before ever he begins his model for it. Mozart “dreamed” each of his wonderful symphonies complete before ever he put a note on paper. But they didn’t stop with the dreaming. They visualized those dreams, and then brought them into actuality.
We lose our capacity to have visions if we do not take steps to realize them.
Power implies service, so concentrate all your thought on making your visions of great deeds come true. Thinking is the current that runs the dynamo of power. To connect up this current so that you can draw upon universal supply through your subconscious mind is to become a Super-man. Do this, and you will have found the key to the solution of every problem of life.
Chapter 18 — This One Thing I Do
How did the Salvation Army get so much favorable publicity out of the War? They were a comparatively small part of the “Services” that catered to the boys “over there,” yet they carried off the lion’s share of the glory. Do you know how they did it?
By concentrating on just one thing — DOUGHNUTS!
They served doughnuts to the boys — and they did it well. And that is the basis of all success in business — to focus on one thing and do that thing well. Better far to do one thing pre-eminently well than to dabble in forty.
Two thousand years ago, Porcius Marcus Cato became convinced, from a visit to the rich and flourishing city of Carthage, that Rome had in her a rival who must be destroyed. His countrymen laughed at him. He was practically alone in his belief. But he persisted. He concentrated all his thought, all his faculties, to that one end. At the end of every speech, at the end of every talk, he centered his hearers’ thought on what he was trying to put over by epitomizing his whole idea in a single sentence — “Carthage must be destroyed!” And Carthage was destroyed. If one man’s concentration on a single idea could destroy a great nation, what can you not do when you apply that same principle to the building of a business?
I remember when I was first learning horsemanship, my instructor impressed this fact upon me: “Remember that a horse is an animal of one idea. You can teach him only one thing at a time.”
Looking back, I’d say the only thing wrong with his instruction was that he took in too little territory. He need not have confined himself to the horse. Most humans are the same way.
In fact, you can put ALL humans into that class if you want a thing done well. For you cannot divide your thought and do justice to any one of the different subjects you are thinking of. You’ve got to do one thing at a time. The greatest success rule I know in business — the one that should be printed over every man’s desk, is — “This One Thing I Do.” Take one piece of work at a time. Concentrate on it to the exclusion of all else. Then finish it! Don’t half-do it, and leave it around to clutter up your desk and interfere with the next job. Dispose of it completely. Pass it along wherever it is to go. Be through with it and forget it! Then your mind will be clear to consider the next matter.
“The man who is Perpetually hesitating which of two things he will do first,” says William Wirt, “will do neither. The man who resolves, but suffers his resolution to be changed by the first counter-suggestion of a friend — who fluctuates from plan to plan and veers like a weather-cock to every point of the compass with every breath of caprice that blows — can never accomplish anything real or useful. It is only the man who first consults wisely, then resolves firmly, and then executes his purpose with inflexible perseverance, undismayed by those petty difficulties that daunt a weaker spirit, that can advance to eminence in any line.”
Everything in the world, even a great business, can be resolved into atoms. And the basic principles behind the biggest business will be found to be the same as those behind the successful running of the corner newsstand. The whole practice of commerce is founded upon them. Any man can learn them, but only the alert and energetic can apply them. The trouble with most men is that they think they have done all that is required of them when they have earned their salary.
Why, that’s only the beginning. Up to that point, you are working for someone else. From then on, you begin to work for yourself. Remember, you must give to get and it is when you give that extra bit of time and attention and thought to your work that you begin to stand out above the crowd around you.
Norval Hawkins, for many years General Manager of Sales for the Ford Motor Company, wrote, “the greatest hunt in the Ford business right now is the MAN hunt.” And big men in every industrial line echo his words. ‘When it comes to a job that needs real ability, they are not looking for relatives or friends or men with “pull.” They want a MAN — and they will pay any price for the right man.
Not only that, but they always have a weather eye open for promising material. And the thing they value most of all is INITIATIVE.
But don’t try to improve the whole works at once. Concentrate on one thing at a time. Pick some one department or some one process or some one thing and focus all your thought upon it. Bring to bear upon it the limitless resources of your subconscious mind. Then prepare a definite plan for the development of that department or the improvement of that process. Verify your facts carefully to make sure they are workable. Then — and not till then — present your plan.
In “Thoughts on Business,” you read: “Men often think of a position as being just about so big and no bigger, when, as a matter of fact, a position is often what one makes it. A man was making about $1,500 a year out of a certain position and thought he was doing all that could be done to advance the business. The employer thought otherwise, and gave the place to another man who soon made the position worth $8,000 a year — at exactly the same commission.
“The difference was in the man — in other words, in what the two men thought about the work. One had a little conception of what the work should be, and the other had a big conception of it. One thought little thoughts, and the other thought big thoughts.
“The standards of two men may differ, not especially because one is naturally more capable than the other, but because one is familiar with big things and the other is not. The time was when the former worked in a smaller scope himself, but when he saw a wider view of what his work might be he rose to the occasion and became a bigger man. It is just as easy to think of a mountain as to think of a hill — when you turn your mind to contemplate it. The mind is like a rubber band — you can stretch it to fit almost anything, but it draws in to a smaller scope when you let go.
“Make it your business to know what is the best that might be in your line of work, and stretch your mind to conceive it, and then devise some way to attain it.
“Big things are only little things put together. I was greatly impressed with this fact one morning as I stood watching the workmen erecting the steel framework for a tall office building. A shrill whistle rang out as a signal, a man over at the engine pulled a lever, a chain from the derrick was lowered, and the whistle rang out again. A man stooped down and fastened the chain around the center of a steel beam, stepped back and blew the whistle once more. Again the lever was moved at the engine, and the steel beam soared into the air up to the sixteenth story, where it was made fast by little bolts.
“The entire structure, great as it was, towering far above all the neighboring buildings, was made up of pieces of steel and stone and wood, put together according to a plan. The plan was first imagined, then penciled, then carefully drawn, and then followed by the workmen. It was all a combination of little things.
“It is encouraging to think of this when you are confronted by a big task. Remember that it is only a group