Applied Faith
Your education, your background, your nationality, your creed have nothing whatsoever to do with your ability to achieve. It’s the state of mind that you maintain. That’s the thing that determines how and what and when you achieve. To me, that’s the most profound thing in all of the knowledge of mankind: the fact that a person can take possession of his own mind. He can color it any way he chooses; he can project it into high places or into the gutter. He can make it a success, or he can make it a failure: just the change of his mental attitude will change it from success to failure almost instantly.
Your mental attitude will do the same thing with your physical health. Had you ever thought about that? I went down to Jackson, Mississippi, a year ago to deliver this entire Master Course in five nights for a dental group. I had to lecture four hours every night. From 8 a.m. until 12 p.m., I was writing scripts and recording radio programs for the local station. From one o’clock in the afternoon until four, I was interviewing each of my students, listening to their problems, and giving them the answers. The rest of the time I was just twiddling my thumbs, fooling around.
I had gone down there with the flu. My doctor said that instead of going on a lecture campaign, I should be going to the hospital. When the end of the week came, I had whipped the flu, and I had found out that my mind could take care of any unusual circumstance if I wanted to do it. I want to tell you that there’s not enough money in the United States Treasury to pay me to undertake to do a job like the one I did down there if I had been doing it only for money. I wouldn’t have submitted my physical body to that kind of a test. But I came out of it in flying colors. I had no ill effects; I’ve never felt better in my life. I learned a great lesson: that there are no limitations to the human mind except those that you set up in your own mind. I think that’s one of the one of the most glorious and profound experiences in my whole life.
I found out something that I didn’t know. Namely, that there are no limitations to what you can do to your physical body or for it with your mind.
A burning desire is the material from which faith is created. A burning desire is an obsession. Obsession means a desire that takes possession of you; it obsesses you. Now there are a lot of desires in the world, but they are not burning or obsessional desires. Most people in their whole lives have never experienced an obsessional desire for anything. We start off with faint hopes and wishes. Everybody wishes for a lot of money without having to work for it. People wish for a Cadillac when they’re driving a Ford; they wish for a mink coat when they are wearing a quilted coat.
I went down to Miami, Florida, with Mr. Stone to address a convention of his state managers. In the speech, I told the wives of the men how easy it would be for them to have mink coats instead of rabbit coats and how easy it would be for the men to have Cadillacs instead of Fords. You know what? They had no better sense than to believe me. The wives went to work, and almost every day, we’re hearing of some wife of a manager who’s bought a new mink coat or a new Cadillac.
Then I was invited to go down to Richmond, Virginia, and tell that story over again to the group down there. They want to learn how to get Cadillacs and mink coats. I told them the same thing that I’m telling you here: that there’s no limitation to your mind. If you want a mink coat, don’t settle for anything less; see that your husband gets out and earns enough money to buy it. If you want a Cadillac and you make up your mind to have it, put into your work that which will entitle you to the Cadillac. If you don’t want a Cadillac, chances are you’ll drive a Ford for the rest of your life.
You have to want things. You have to want them with a burning desire, and then you have to do something about the burning desire. What is it?
Action. You’ve got to start in right where you stand, showing that you do have faith in your ability. Start right where you stand with action.
There are many examples of individuals of achievement, but there is one that I particularly want to call to your attention: Miss Helen Keller, who believed that she would learn to talk despite the fact that she had lost the use of her speech, her sight, and her hearing in her early life. Can you imagine that? She couldn’t hear, she couldn’t see, and she couldn’t speak. And yet Miss Helen Keller became one of the best-educated women in the world. She’s more in contact with public affairs and civic affairs and conditions all over the world than nine tenths of the women who have all of their senses. It is an outstanding thing, and all she has to go on is vibration. If you speak to her, she puts her fingers up to your lips; she can tell what you are saying by her fingertips—entirely by vibration. Think of a woman who has a handicap of that kind all the way through life, getting joy out of life, rendering useful service, making speeches. She has learned to talk; she is doing a great work where the majority of people with any one of those afflictions would have settled for a tin cup and a bunch of lead pencils on a street corner.
While I was on the staff of Franklin D. Roosevelt, every day at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue—the street running by the White House—I passed a man sitting with a tin cup and some pencils. I became acquainted with that man. He had lost the use of his legs; he had exactly the same affliction as Franklin D. Roosevelt, and it happened about the same time. I found out that he had an even better education than Franklin D. Roosevelt had, but there he was, with a tin cup and pencils, trying to eke out a living by begging. Just a block away there was a man with the most important and responsible position in the whole world, running a great nation, who also lost the use of his legs, but this man had lost the use of his brain; he had lost confidence in himself.
These physical losses sometimes turn out to be great blessings. Very often they teach us that we can get along without an eye or without legs or without hands. We can get along without a lot of things if we have the right mental attitude toward what’s left of us. That’s important.
If you would have faith, keep your mind on that which you want and not on that which you do not want. Now how do you go about that?
Look up the word transmute in the dictionary and see what it means. You know in a general way, but look it up, because that way it will be more impressed in your subconscious mind.
The way you keep your mind off things you don’t want is to transfer your mind over to the things you do want and start talking about them, giving thanks for already possessing them. It sounds silly to anybody who doesn’t know what you’re doing, but it won’t sound silly to you, because you know what you’re doing. You’re talking to your subconscious mind; you’re reeducating yourself. You’re keeping your mind fixed on things you want and off the things you don’t want. In order to do that you have to keep talking. You have to keep thinking. You can’t talk without thinking (some people can, but most of them can’t). Keep on talking about things you want.
If you ever feel blue or discouraged or lacking in courage, I’ll tell you a good remedy. Sit down, take a writing tablet, and start numbering. Number one, write down the thing that you want most in life. Number two, the thing that you want the next most. Number three, the thing you want next most after that. When it gets down to the kind of house you live in, describe the lot that you want it on—whether you want it on a lot of acreage on top of a hill, down below the road, or above the road; how many rooms you want that house to have; how you want each room furnished. You will have a grand time furnishing those rooms. It’s better than window shopping because you can go the limit in your mind. In window shopping, you only have two legs and you can only walk so far. Do a little mental window shopping and, believe you me, you will get your mind over that mood. You will get it onto something constructive, and you’ll be educating your subconscious mind to keep on the right side of the street.
The assignment I’m giving you now is not foolish. It’s not facetious. It’s a real assignment, and you’ll get real joy out of doing it. Start right in doing something physically. When anything bothers you, write down the things that you want.
I don’t know why it is that when a person makes up his mind about what he wants and becomes determined to get it, all the powers of the universe seem to come to his aid to see that he gets it. I don’t know why that is, but I know that it is, and that’s enough for me. There are a lot of things in this world that I can see and a lot of advantages I can use that I don’t understand, but I don’t need to understand them. I know which button to press to get the result I want. I don’t need to know what happens between the pressing of that button and the result. I know that if you can follow the instructions in this philosophy, you will be able to take possession of your own mind, get the things out of life that you want, and make life pay off on your own terms.
How, do you suppose, would I know that a person can actually make life pay off point by point on his own terms instead of accepting the circumstances? There is only one way in this world that I could possibly know that, and that’s from my own experience. I can tell you sincerely that there aren’t any of the best of things in this world that I want that I don’t have or can’t get easily. Not anything.
What an astounding statement that is in contrast to what I might have said a few years back, before I’d learned the secret of getting everything that I want. There was a time when I was carrying around in my own pocket the matches with which I was setting my house of opportunity on fire, but I didn’t know it. I finally got rid of those matches. I began to build that house of opportunity, and the contents of the house resemble the picture of it that I built in my mind, right down to the finest detail.
There is no such thing as a blanket faith. You must have a definite objective, a purpose, a goal, before you can have faith in anything. Faith is a mental attitude wherein the mind is cleared of all fears and doubts and directed toward the attainment of something definite through the inspiration of infinite intelligence.
Faith is guidance; it is nothing more. It’s not going to go out and get you that Cadillac, or that mink coat, or that new house, or that better job, or that better business with all those clients that you need—faith is not going to do that. But faith will guide you as to how you can do it, and you will find that there is always a part you must play. The Creator wisely arranged it so that we can produce our food from the soil of the earth. Everything that we eat, use, or work with comes from the earth—everything. And infinite intelligence has wisely provided a system whereby you can be sure of getting your food out of the soil of the earth. By complying with the laws of nature, you go out and plant the seed. You plant it in soil that you have examined to make sure it has the elements that you want in the plant. You plant it at the right season. You plant it at the right depth in the ground. All of those things you do by way of going the extra mile; you do them in advance. Then what do you do? You go back the next day and start harvesting, do you?
No. You time it properly, you find out what nature requires in order to transmute a seed of wheat into a stalk of wheat with five hundred or a thousand grains. And you comply with nature’s law.
It’s the same thing identically in connection with faith. You expect guidance, but you have to do your part. You always will find that there is a part that you must do in connection with a demonstration of faith. Faith will do nothing for you if you expect everything to be done for you outside of yourself.
Faith probably works through the subconscious mind. Why do I use the word probably? Because nobody knows definitely whether it does or not. It’s a theory, and for want of a better theory, I’m using it. Faith appears to work through the subconscious mind, which acts as the gateway between the conscious mind and infinite intelligence. My mental picture of what happens when you pray properly is that you first condition your mind—you know what it is you want—and then you transfer a clear picture over to your subconscious mind. The subconscious is the intermediary, the gatekeeper, between you and infinite intelligence. It’s the only thing that could turn on the power of infinite intelligence for you. It is the only way you can reach into infinite intelligence, in my book of rules. If that isn’t correct, as far as I’m concerned, it might as well be correct, because that’s the way I get it to work.
Steps in Developing Faith
Now let’s look at the essential steps in the development of self-reliance based on faith. If there’s anything that people need more than anything else, it is self-reliance: belief in yourself.
Here are the most important ones. First of all, adopt a definite major purpose and begin at once to attain it using the instructions described in chapter 1. That’s the first step in building self-confidence. When you know what you want, and you start in getting it, you have a measure of self-reliance. You’re demonstrating a measure of self-reliance, because if you didn’t believe in yourself, you wouldn’t even begin, would you? The very fact that you start, even though you’re a long way from attaining the thing you’re going after, shows that you have a measure of self-reliance. The more you pursue that idea, the stronger that belief will be.
Next: associate as many as possible of the nine basic motives with the object of the definite major purpose. In other words, when you go after anything, inspire yourself with as many of those nine basic motives as possible.
In order to get something that you want very badly—say, extra money—you begin to connive and work out some sort of scheme to earn more money. My little son Blair, when he was about six or seven years old, wanted a nice electric train that cost $50. It was more than we felt we could give him at that time, because we’d have to give the other two children $50 gifts too. I told Blair that, and he said, “Oh, I didn’t ask you to buy me anything. I just wanted your approval to buy the train, because I’ve already got it picked out; I’ve got the order made out.” And he had: Lionel train, $50.
The next day came a big snow. Blair borrowed a shovel from the janitor and went down the street cleaning off the sidewalks. The people all came out and got into a conversation with him. “Oh,” he said, “I thought I’d be a nice thing to clean off your sidewalk. I see you haven’t started doing it yet. I thought it would be nice, if you’d appreciate it.” Invariably they would give him a quarter, a half dollar, sometimes a dollar; one man gave him $5. Long before the end of the month, he had his $50, and $10 more that he earned himself. His mother thought he ought not to be permitted to do that: it kind of disgraced us to let him go out down the street cleaning off sidewalks. “Well,” I said, disgrace aside, “they’ve found out who we are that we can raise a child like this.” How did we do it? Motive.
Write out a list of all the advantages of your definite major purpose, and call these into your mind many times daily, thereby making your mind success-conscious. Did you know that in order to be healthy, you have to be health-conscious? No matter what other precautions you take, if your mental attitude is not health-conscious, if you’re not thinking in terms of health, if you’re not expecting to be healthy, you’re not going to be, no matter what else you do.
It’s the same thing with success. If you accept any kind of a fear complex or an inferiority complex, if you don’t expect success of yourself and develop a success expectation or consciousness, you’re not going to be a success. If your major purpose is to achieve some material thing or money, see yourself already in possession of it. It is of vital importance to call it into your consciousness, because, again, your power of faith is coming into play. If your faith isn’t great enough that you can see the thing already in your possession even before you start to get it, then you are not making use of applied faith.
Associate with people who are in sympathy with you and your major purpose, and let them encourage you in every way possible. This has reference only to close friends or members of your Master Mind alliance. Don’t disclose your aims and purposes to people who are not absolutely dependable, loyal, and close to you. Sometimes people to whom you disclose your ideas—if they’re good ideas—go around the corner and beat you to the draw, and they’re using your ideas before you use them, or they say something to discourage you.
Let not a single day pass without making at least one definite move towards the attainment of your major purpose, and choose some prosperous, self-reliant person as your pacemaker—someone who paces you, not only to catch up with him, but to accelerate.
I hope and pray with all of my might that every single one of my students that goes into the business of teaching will make up his mind that he’s going to surpass Napoleon Hill, and is going to do it pronto. You have my 100 percent cooperation and heartfelt sympathy in helping you do that. A teacher worthy of the name always wants to develop students that surpass the teacher. I’m going to do just that, and I’ll tell you why: because you have so many more facilities at your command now than I had when I started. In other words, we have the equipment with which to help you do much more in a much shorter time than I ever did. I can’t imagine any intelligent person with a reasonable education not taking the lectures that you’re getting here without weaving it into a fine job of teaching. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’re going to become able teachers, every one of you that follow the instructions.
Faith is a positive mental attitude in action. Your mental attitude is reflected in every word you speak, and it speaks louder than your words. Your mental attitude is the sum total of your thoughts at a given time. A positive mental attitude has its roots in the spiritual will. Mental attitude is the medium by which adversities may be transmuted into benefits.
Find some suggestions that appeal to you, print them out on a card, or in some form where you can put them up and see them each day and make them your own. Surround yourself with suggestions. Everywhere you look, you’ll see something that suggests a positive mental attitude. You’ll notice when you go into the office or home of a successful person, you will find that oftentimes he is surrounded with pictures of those whom he considers great. Oftentimes you see mottos on the walls. I’ve seen hundreds of them.
I walked into my friend Jennings Randolph’s office when he was in Congress in Washington, and I found that all of the walls were covered with the pictures of men whom he considered great. He did it to live in the environment of the great, in the environment of things that kept his mind positive.
Start in while you’re in your home, in your business, in your office, wherever you stay the most. Maybe it’s in your bedroom, where you sleep every night. Put up something that will give you a positive thought just before you go to bed and will remind you of it every time you go in there. You will be surprised how much good it will do you.