Speaker 1: Lessens eleven and twelve of the power of concentration lesson eleven.
Concentrate on courage. Courage is the backbone of man. The
man with courage has persistence. He states what he believes
and puts it into execution. The courageous man has confidence.
He draws to himself all the moral qualities and mental
forces which go to make up a strong man, whereas
the man without courage draws to himself all the qualities
of a weak man, vacillation, doubt, hesitancy, and unsteadiness of purpose.
You can therefore see the value of concentration on courage.
It is a most vital element of success. The lack
of courage creates financial as well as mental and moral difficulties.
When a new problem comes, instead of looking upon it
as something to be achieved, the man or woman without
courage looks for reasons why it cannot be done, and
failure is naturally the almost inevitable result. This is a
subject well worthy of your study. Look upon everything within
your power as a possibility instead of is merely a probability,
and you will accomplish a great deal more, because by
considering a thing as impossible, you immediately draw to yourself
all the elements that contribute to failure. Lack of courage
destroys your confidence in yourself. It destroys that forceful, resolute
attitude so important to success. The man without courage unconsciously
draws to himself all that is contemptible, weakening, demoralizing, and destructive.
He then blames his luck when he does not secure
the things he weakly desires. We must first have the
courage to strongly desire something. A desire to be fulfilled
must be backed by the strength of all our mental forces.
Such a desire has enough commanding force to change all
unfavorable conditions. The man with courage commands, whether be on
the battle field or in business life. What is courage?
It is the will to do It. Takes no more
energy to be courageous than to be cowardly. It is
a matter of the right training in the right way.
Courage concentrates the mental forces on the task at hand.
It then directs them thoughtfully, steadily, deliberately, while attracting all
the forces of success toward the desired end. Cowardice, on
the other hand, dissipates both our mental and moral forces,
thereby inviting failure. As we are creatures of habit. We
should avoid persons that lack courage. They are easy to
discover because of their habits of fear in attacking new problems.
The man with courage is never afraid. Start out to
day with the idea that there is no reason why
you should not be courageous. If any fear thoughts come
to you, cast them off, as you would do the
deadly viper form the habit of never thinking of anything
unfavorable to yourself or any one else. In dealing with
difficulties new or old, hold ever the thought I am courageous.
Whenever a doubt crosses the threshold of your mind, banish it.
Remember you, as a master of your mind, control its
every thought. And here is a good one to often affirm.
I have courage because I desire it, because I need it,
because I use it, and because I refuse to become
such a weakling as a cowardice produces. There is no
justification for the loss of courage. The evils by which
you will almost certainly be overwhelmed without it are far
greater than those which courage will help you to meet
and overcome. Right, then must be the moralist who says
that the only thing to fear is fear. Never let
another's opinion affect you. He cannot tell you what you
are able to do. He does not know what you
can do with your forces. The truth is, you do
not know yourself until you have put yourself to the test. Therefore,
how can someone else know? Almost all wonderful achievements have
been accomplished after it has been thoroughly demonstrated that they
were impossibilities. Once we understand the law, all things are possible.
If they were impossibilities, we could not conceive them. Just
the moment you allow someone to influence you against what
you think is right, you lose that confidence in yourself
that inspires courage and carries with it all the forces
which courage creates. Just the moment you begin to swerve
in your plan, you begin to carry out another's thought
and not your own. You become the directed and not
the director. You forsake the courage and resolution of your
own mind, and you therefore lack the very forces that
you need to sustain and carry out your work. Instead
of being self reliant, you become timid, and this invites
fail failure. When you permit yourself to be influenced from
your plan by another, You are unable to judge as
you should because you have allowed another's influence to deprive
you of your courage and determination without absorbing any of
his in return. So you are in much the same
predicament as you would be in if you turned over
all your worldly possessions to another without getting value received.
Concentrate on just the opposite of fear, want, poverty, sickness,
et cetera. Never doubt your own ability. You have plenty
if you will just use it. A great many men
are failures because they doubt their own capacity. Instead of
building up strong mental forces, which would be of the
greatest use to them, their fear thoughts tear them down.
Fear paralyzes energy. It keeps us from attracting the forces
that go to make up success. Fear is the worst
enemy we have. There are few people that really know
that they can accomplish much. They desire the full extent
of their powers. But alas it is only occasionally that
you find a man that is aware of the great
possibilities within him. When you believe with all your mind
and heart and soul that you can do something, you
thereby develop the courage to steadily and confidently live up
to that belief. You have now gone a long way
towards accomplishing it. The chances are that there will be
obstacles big and little in your way, but resolute courage
will overcome them, and nothing else will. Strong courage eliminates
the injurious and opposing forces by summoning their masters, the
yet stronger forces that will serve you. Courage is yours
for the asking. All you have to do is to
believe in it, claim it and use it to succeed
in business. Believe that it will be successful, assert that
it is successful, and work like a beaver to make
it so. Difficulty soon melt away before the courageous one
man of courage can fire with his spirit a whole
army of men, whether it be military or industrial. Because courage,
like cowardice, is contagious. The man of courage overcomes the
trials and temptations of life. He commands success, he renders
sound judgment. He develops personal influence and a forceful character,
and often becomes the mentor of the community which he
serves how to overcome depression and melancholia. Both of the
former are harmful and make you unhappy. These are states
that can be quickly overcome through concentrating more closely on
the higher self, For when you do, you cut off
the connection with the harmful force currents. You can also
drive away moods by simply choosing and fully concentrating on
an agreeable subject. Through will, power and thought control, we
can accomplish anything we want to do. There is wonderful
inherent power within us all, and there is never any
sufficient cause for fear except ignorance. Every evil is but
the product of ignorance, and every one that possesses the
power to think has the power to overcome ignorance and evil.
The pain that we suffer from doing evil are but
the lessons of experience, and the object of the pain
is to make us realize our ignorance. When we become depressed,
it is evidence that our thought faculties are combining improperly
and thereby attracting the wrong force currents. All that is
necessary to do is to exercise the will and concentrate
upon happy subjects. I will only think of subjects worthy
of my higher self in its powers. Lesson twelve, concentrate
on wealth. It was never intended that man should be poor.
When wealth is obtained under the proper conditions, it broadens
the life. Everything has its value, Everything has a good
use and a bad use. The forces of mind, like wealth,
can be directed either for good or evil. A little
rest will recreate forces. Too much rest degenerates into laziness
and brainless dreamy longings. If you acquire wealth unjustly from others,
you are misusing your forces. But if your wealth comes
through the right sources, you will be blessed. Through wealth,
we can do things to uplift ourselves and humanity. Wealth
is many persons goal. It therefore stimulates their endeavor. They
long for it in order to dress and live in
such a way as to attract friends. Without friends, they
would not be so particular of their surroundings. The fact is,
the more attractive we make ourselves and our surroundings, the
more inspiring are their influences. It is not conducive to
proper thought to be surrounded by conditions that are uncon
genial and unpleasant. So the first step toward acquiring wealth
is to surround yourself with helpful influences, to claim for
yourself an environment of culture, place yourself in it, and
be molded by its influences. Most great men of all
ages have been comparatively rich. They have made or inherited money.
Without money, they could not have accomplished what they did.
The man engaged in physical drudgery is not likely to
have the same high ideals as the man that can
command comparative leisure. Wealth is usually the fruit of achievement.
It is not, however, altogether the result of being industrious.
Thousands of persons work hard who never grow wealthy. Others
with much less effort acquire wealth. Seeing possibilities is another
step toward acquiring wealth. A man may be as industrious
as he can possibly be, but if he does not
use his mental forces, he will be a laborer. To
be directed by the man that uses to good advantage
his mental forces. No one can become wealthy in an
ordinary lifetime by mere savings from earnings. Many scrimp in
economize all their lives, but by so doing waste all
their vitality and energy. For example, I know a man
that used to walk to work. It took him an
hour to go and an hour to return. He could
have taken a car and gone in twenty minutes. He
saved ten cents a day but wasted an hour and
a half. It was not a very profitable investment. Unless
the time spent in physical exercise yielded him large returns
in the way of health, the same amount of time
spent in concentrated effort to overcome his unfavorable business environment
might have firmly planted his feet in the path of prosperity.
One of the big mistakes made by many persons of
the present generation is that they associate with those who
fail to call out or divy develop the best that
is in them. When the social side of life is
developed too exclusively, as it often is, and recreation or
entertainment becomes the leading motive of a person's life, he
acquires habits of extravagance instead of economy, habits of wasting
his resources physical, mental, moral, and spiritual instead of conserving them.
He is, in consequence lacking in proper motivation. His God
given powers and forces are undeveloped, and he inevitably brings
poor judgment to bear upon all the higher relationships of life,
while as to his financial fortunes, he is ever the leaner,
often a parasite, and always if opportunity affords as heavy
a consumer as he is a poor producer. It seems
a part of the tragedy of life that these persons
have to be taught such painful lessons before they can
understand the forces and laws that regulate life. Few profit
by the mistakes of others. They must experience them for themselves,
and then apply the knowledge so gained in reconstructing their lives.
Any man that has ever amounted to anything has never
done a great deal of detail work for long periods.
At any given time, he needs his time to reflect.
He does not do his duties to day in the
same way as yesterday, but as the result of deliberate
and concentrated effort, constantly tries to improve his methods. The
other day I attended a lecture on prosperity. I knew
the lecturer had been practically broke for ten years. I
wanted to hear what he had to say. He spoke
very well. He no doubt benefited some of his hearers,
but he had not profited by his own teachings. I
introduced myself and asked him if he believed in his maxims.
He said he did. I asked him if they made
him prosperous. He said not exactly. I asked him why.
He answered that he thought he was not to experience prosperity.
In half an hour, I showed that man why poverty
had always been his companion. He had dressed poorly, he
held his lectures in poor surroundings. By his actions and beliefs,
he attracted poverty. He did not realize that his thoughts
and his surroundings exercised an unfavorable influence. I said, thoughts
are moving forces, great powers. Thoughts of wealth attract wealth. Therefore,
if you desire wealth, you must attract the forces that
will help you to secure it. Your thoughts attract a
similar kind of thoughts. If you hold thoughts of poverty,
you attract poverty. If you make up your mind you
are going to be wealthy, you will instill this thought
into all your mental forces, and you will, at the
same time use every external condition to help you. Many
persons are of the opinion that if you have money,
it is easy to make more money, but this is
not necessarily true. Ninety percent of the men that start
in business fail. Money will not enable one to accumulate
much more unless he is trained to seek and use
good opportunities for its investment. If he inherits money, the
chances are that he will lose it, while if he
has made it, he not only knows its value, but
has developed the power to use it as well as
to make more if he loses it. Business success to
day depends on foresight, good judgment, grit, firm resolution, and
settled purpose. But never forget that thought is as real
a force as electricity. Let your thoughts be such that
you will send out as good as you receive. If
you do not, you are not enriching others, and therefore
deserve not to be enriched. The man that tries to
get all he can from others for nothing becomes so
selfish and mean that he does not even enjoy his
own acquisitions. We see examples of this every day. What
we take from others will in turn be taken from us.
All obligations have to be met fairly and squarely. We
cannot reach perfection until we discharge every obligation of our lives.
We all realize this, so why not willingly give a
fair exchange for all that we receive? Again, I repeat
that the first as well as the last, step in
acquiring wealth is to surround yourself with good influences. Good thought,
good health, good home and business environment, and successful business
associates cultivate by every legitimate means the acquaintance of men
of big caliber. Bring your thought vibrations in regard to
business into harmony with theirs. This will make your society
not only agreeable, but sought after. And when you have
formed intimate friendships with clean, reputable men of wealth, intrust
to them for your investment your surplus earnings. However, until
you have developed the initiative and business acumen to successfully
manage your own investments. By this time you will, through
such associations, have found your place in life, which, if
you have rightly concentrated upon and used your opportunities, will
not be among men of small parts. With a competence secured,
you will take pleasure in using a part of it,
in making the road you traveled in reaching your position
easier for those who follow you. There is somewhere in
every brain the energy that will get you out of
that rut and put you far up on the mountain
of success if you can only use the energy. You
know that gasoline in the engine of an automobile doesn't
move the car until the spark comes to explode. The gasoline.
So it is with the mind of man. We are
not speaking now of men of great genius, but of average,
able citizens. Each one of them has in his brain
the capacity to climb over the word impossible and get
into the successful country beyond and hope. Self confidence and
the determination to do something supply the spark that makes
the energy work