It seems to me that one of the great purposes of life is to:
BE HAPPY ALL THE TIME AND TO MAKE OTHERS HAPPY!
This course has been built with the object of teaching all who master it the art of true happiness.
This is not mere idealism – it is common sense as well!
“What would it profit you to become the most able person in the world if you were not happy? What would it profit you to gain anything in this world if you did not also find true happiness in your work?”
– Napoleon Hill
If you go about the preparation of these lessons with implicit faith in your own ability to master them and with a full understanding that you are going to get out of this course all of the practical philosophy that any person needs with which to succeed, you will have absolutely no difficulty in seeing the immediate and satisfactory results!
Confidence in yourself and confidence in us must precede everything else if you expect to make this course profitable. Neither religion nor politics has entered into this course in any manner.
This is purely a business and life course, intended to prepare men and women for successful, happy careers. We make these explanations at this time for the reason that our method of presenting this course is decidedly in advance of anything ever undertaken in the educational field.
We congratulate you upon your eligibility for admission as a student-member of this course, but WE SHALL CONGRATULATE YOU MORE HEARTILY IF YOU STICK BY THIS COURSE TO THE END AND THEREBY PROVE THAT YOU HAVE THE GOOD JUDGMENT TO RECOGNIZE REAL OPPORTUNITY FOR SELF-IMPROVEMENT, AS WELL AS DETERMINATION TO FINISH ALL THAT YOU START!
You will see that I have supplied you with questions. In answering all such questions, use YOUR OWN JUDGMENT and answer in YOUR OWN WORDS. We do not aim to make you a “Polly Parrot” student. We want to make you a thinker and a constructive planner of Sales Ideas and Life Ideas!
“First comes thought; then organization of that thought into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.”
– Napoleon Hill
Finish Everything You Begin
(an after-the-lesson visit with Mr. Hill)
During the past fifteen years I have had the opportunity to study at close range several of America’s captains of industry. The quality in all of them that impressed me most was that of their persistence in the pursuit of one object!
Carnegie has concentrated all of his energies on the Steel business and has succeeded in the business.
Vanderlip has concentrated all of his energies on Banking and Finance and he has succeeded in that business.
Rockefeller has concentrated all of his energies on the oil business and he has succeeded in that business.
Harriman and Hill stuck consistently to the Railroad business and succeeded in that business.
Ford has clung consistently to the automobile business, concentrating all of his efforts on that business and he has made a success of it.
Wanamaker has concentrated on his retail Department Store and made a big success of it.
And so the story might go on and on ad infinitum. The men I have mentioned are not the only ones who have succeeded because they first decided what they wanted to do and then went ahead and did it – they are just a few of the more prominent ones!
The great value of finishing everything we start is more apparent to me because it was quite noticeable that the majority of the 10,000 people whom I have analyzed were not succeeding because they had too many irons in the fire. They knew how to do too many things and had not enough knowledge of any one particular thing.
The following editorial, which appeared in Every Week, shows that I am not alone in my recommendations to finish everything you start if you wish to succeed:
HEZEKIAH IS DEAD; BUT HIS FORMULA STILL HOLDS GOOD: ONE THING AT A TIME.
There is a certain man among my acquaintances who, with a little less ability, would have made a splendid success. That sounds strange, but employers of man will understand: they will have a picture right away of the kind of man he is.
In his boyhood he mowed lawns, like the other boys; also he ran a lemonade stand besides, and managed a newspaper route, and was forever figuring out a new scheme.
He graduated from high school and entered business with great promise. But he had not been at work three months before he was running a couple of little private businesses on the side.
So he has continued through life – cursed with the unhappy gift of being able to do three or four things at once. He ekes out a very fair income today, drawing it in little bits from half a dozen different sources.
But he is getting along in life, and there is no one single business of which he can say: “I made it.” He has scattered himself so widely that there is not one spot in the world’s life that bears the permanent imprint of his effort.
Twice he was almost broken down from overworking. And four of the men who were his boyhood playmates – men who were satisfied to mow lawns and attempt nothing else – have plugged along, each in single business, and, with far less ability than he, have reached a higher place in the world.
I was reminded of him last night, in running across a reference to Lord Mount Stephen, in the new biography of James J. Hill.
George Stephen – he became Lord Mount Stephen afterward – was the son of a carpenter in Duffton, Scotland. He worked for a time in a shop in Aberdeen, but was brought to America at an early age, and became one of the makers of Canada, and a power in the British Empire.
In 1901, visiting Scotland, he was presented with the freedom of the city of Aberdeen; and this is what he said: “Any success I may have had in life is due in a great measure to the somewhat Spartan training I receive during my Aberdeen apprenticeship, on which I entered as a boy of fifteen. To that training, coupled with the fact that I seem to have been born utterly without the faculty of doing more than one thing at a time, is due that I am here before you today. I had but few wants and no distractions to draw me away from the work I had in hand. It was impressed upon me from my earliest years, by one of the best mothers that ever lived, that I must aim at being a thorough master of the work by which I got my living; and to be that I must concentrate my whole energies on my work, whatever that might be, to the exclusion of every other thing.”
Concentration – with the exception of honesty – it covers a larger measure of the secret success than any other word. I once asked a very successful man how he was able to get so much done and still have leisure time. “I pick up only one paper from my desk at a time,” he said, “and I make it a point not to lay that paper down until I have settled the business that it involves.”
I was present in his office when a friend came to offer him a participation in an enterprise that promised to be very profitable. He answered, “I can’t do it, Jim. I don’t need the money, and no amount of money could possibly compensate me for the nuisance and inefficiency of having to carry two things on my mind at the same time.”
“One thing at a time” was the formula of Hezekiah, who refused to dally with sidelines or attempt more than one thing at a time. And in every work that he began, he did with all his heart – and prospered.
As I write, there is an opening in my organization that will pay the person qualified to it all the way from $5,000 to $10,000 a year.
GITOMER NOTE: This would be equivalent to $70,000 to $140,000 in 2018 dollars!
Chicago is a city of over two and a half million people, over one-fiftieth of the entire population of America, yet in all this city I know of no one having the courage to tackle this job with any reasonable assurance of filling it satisfactorily. Yet the specifications do not seem unreasonable. They only call for just the type of person that all other business houses are looking for.
What do you think of the specifications:
(1) I want a man or woman who will finish everything he or she starts, whether it is sharpening a pencil, wr
iting a letter, or something of greater importance!
(2) I want someone who will do at least everything he is told to do, and who will not offer excuses to take the place of results.
(3) I want someone who will reach out and demand great responsibilities, taking care all the while to keep growing and getting ready to assume additional duties.
(4) I want someone who will love the job so well that he will forget hours – forget pay – forget Saturday night – forget all his own selfish interests and devote his entire time and thought to the task of carving a future out of the opportunity at hand.
(5) I want someone who will be frank and sincere with himself and all with whom he comes in contact, and who will be a living example of our slogan, “Truthful Living.”
(6) I want a person who will not wait for me or some of the other officials to tell him what to do, but who will learn to see what ought to be done and do it.
(7) I want a person who is big enough to overlook the little insults which thoughtless people throw out, often unintentionally – a person who can see something good in every human being on earth – a person who will honestly strive to develop the good there is in every person with whom he comes in contact.
(8) I want a person who will believe heart and soul in everything he does in connection with his position, a person who will not misrepresent the Institute, either by direct statement or by innuendo.
(9) I want a person who will meet the public with a smile on his face – a smile that comes from the heart. I want him to shake hands with people as though he enjoyed it.
(10) I want a person who will not be jealous of his fellow-employees or afraid that one of them will get his job – a person who will help those around him to be more efficient – a person who will be happy and enthusiastic.
(11) I want a person who truly loves to serve his fellow men, and who will look upon his opportunity to do so as a welcome privilege.
(12) I want a person who is observant – who sees all that goes on around him – who can distinguish between the important and the unimportant experiences of his daily routine, retaining and classifying the former and brushing aside the latter.
(13) I want a person who knows or will take the time to learn how to eat properly – a person who will not incapacitate himself and become a “grouch” by overeating, as seventy-five percent of the people of today are doing.
(14) I want a person who will refuse to allow himself to be aroused to anger by some ill-bred person who hasn’t learned the art of self-control.
(15) I want a person who believes that he ought to be paid in exact ratio to what he produces for the business, whether it is $1,000 or $100,000 a year, and who will be satisfied with that.
Those are the specifications. If you can fill them, you can have the position. Or, if it should be filled when you apply, don’t worry, because I have a dozen or more friends among the Chicago businessmen who will consider that I have done them an everlasting favor by sending you to them.
Notice, in particular what I stated as the first requirement! I stated it first because it is the most important.
Now here is a very startling statement. The George Washington Institute is going to prepare you to fill this position, or one as good or better. Do not misunderstand me to say that it is going to do this without an IF, and it is this –
IF – you will follow instructions faithfully until you have turned in all of the lesson assignments and passed the final examination.
In lesson number ten we have a surprise for you. In that lesson we will tell you exactly how to prepare for this position. This lesson will bring you a message that you’ll never forget as long as you live. It isn’t a preachment, but a scientific, tried-and-true principle which will place you head and shoulders above that great mass of humanity that is just plodding along, barely existing.
Do not ask any questions about this lesson until you get to it for this will avail you nothing. The only way you can unlock the door to the secret of this lesson is to work for it by mastering the intervening seven lessons.
The great value of this course, as you will see as you proceed with it, is that it requires you to LEARN BY DOING! On the other hand you will be constantly aware of the fact that each lesson will bring you something that you will enjoy doing – something decidedly worth doing!
And, in closing, I might as well again state that the course you are studying is much more than a course in the technique and mechanics of learning! It is all of that, of course, but that is the least that it is.
The chief object behind this course and the George Washington Institute is to help men and women to be prosperous and HAPPY! To be happy and prosperous you must cultivate self-confidence, enthusiasm, love for humanity, and the ability to stick to everything you start until you finish it!
In lesson five we will give you your first lesson in the development of these qualities, particularly self-confidence.
Long before you reach the middle of this course you are going to see a remarkable change in your mental attitude, and you are going to be mighty glad that you joined us.
If you have been in the habit of starting things that you didn’t finish, you can get back on the right track and overcome this curse of mankind by making a good job of finishing this course.
In doing this, you will have accomplished something that will be worthy to you for all the time and money you will put into the course.
Yours for finishing all that you start,
Napoleon Hill
80 E. Randolph St.
Chicago, Ill.
GITOMER’S THOUGHTFUL ACTIONS
HOW TO IMPLEMENT THIS LESSON
Well, at least you finished this lesson. And I think you’re beginning to get the idea that each lesson represents its own opportunity and certainly its own challenge for you to take new, better, and more successful actions. Keep in mind that no single lesson in this book will provide “THE ANSWER,” but combined, they provide the success answers that everyone is seeking, including you. The question is: Are you willing to START and FINISH? This is a book that requires little or no investment in anything other than yourself. There’s nothing to buy, there’s no inventory to keep, other than the investment that you make in yourself and the inventory of the success ideas and actions that are in your brain. The time has come for you to succeed, but you cannot do it without finishing what you start.
“To be happy and prosperous you must cultivate self-confidence, enthusiasm, love for humanity, and the ability to stick to everything you start until you finish it!”
– Napoleon Hill
“The time has come for you to succeed, but you cannot do it without finishing what you start.”
– Jeffrey Gitomer
“Thought is the beginning of all the wealth and all the mechanical or physical things created by man!”
– Napoleon Hill
Lesson Number
3
HOW TO THINK
GITOMER INSIGHT: Hill tackles a near-impossible task challenging you to think about the way you think. What are the elements that go into your thought development process? How do you think productively? This is an insightful, fundamental lesson on the reality of thought and thinking. It reveals strategies and capabilities you may already possess, but never have uncovered or exposed.
It is altogether befitting that we discuss this subject at this time because this will start you on this course with a powerful advantage – one that will not only ensure your getting more out of the course – but which will help you also to get more out of life from this time on.
THE CAUSE OF LIFE’S MISERIES
Ninety percent of life’s miseries and failures are caused by our lack of understanding of the comparatively simple principles through which we think accurately. The chief reason that ninety-five percent of the people are working for the other five percent is that ninety-five percent do not know how to think.
The reason the wealth of the world is so unevenly distributed is th
at the masses do not know how to think while the classes do know how!
The principles underlying accurate thought are as definable and as well understood by scientific men as are the principles of mathematics.
THOUGHT DEFINED
Before we proceed further let us define thought, not necessarily as the dictionaries do, but after our own simple fashion.
In the first place, thought is the beginning of all the wealth and all the mechanical or physical things created by man!
Get that clearly fixed in your mind so we may have a common ground upon which to reason out this, the greatest of all questions, “How to Think.”
The first thing you do before you start to even plan an advertisement, much less to write it, is to think what you are going to do and how you are going to proceed. If there is no thought, there is no bodily action.
Are we together on that?
Yes, then we will proceed a step further and see if we cannot agree that the success will depend upon the extent to which the thought that goes into it is accurate. If you think accurately and if nothing but facts go into that thought, you will find it comparatively easy to classify and organize those facts. Of course this same logic applies to anything else you might undertake.
THE SUBJECT TO BE THOUGHT ABOUT
The first thing for consideration when you start to think is the subject or object of your thought. It may be the planning of an advertising campaign to be carried out through the leading newspapers of the United States involving an expenditure of $100,000, or it may be the planning of a sales or collection letter, or it may be the planning of a picnic party. There can be no thought without a subject about which to think.
Andrew Carnegie selected the subject of steel manufacture, and, by applying the same principles which we shall explain to you in this lesson, he built up the greatest steel industry in the world and incidentally gained all the success, as measured in dollars, that any man could wish for.
Rockefeller selected the subject of oil about which to think, and, through the application of the same principles, he established the world’s greatest oil refining business and made himself a multimillionaire.
Truthful Living Page 3