THE SECRET OF SUCCESS, William Walter Atkinson [best management books of all time txt] 📗

they to you, and you
will be brought into relations with persons, things and environments likely to
work out the problem of your Desires – you will get "next to" the right persons
and things - all by the operation of this great natural Law of Attraction. No
Necromancy or Magic about it at all – nothing supernatural or mysterious – just
the operations of a great Natural Law.
You can do little by yourself in Life, be you ever so strong and able. Life is a
complex thing, and individuals are interdependent upon each other for the
doings of things. One Individual, segregated from all the other Individuals, could
accomplish little or nothing along the lines of outer activity. He must form
combinations, arrangements, harmonies and agreements with others, and in
accordance with environments and things, that is, he must create and use the
proper environments and things, and draw to himself others with whom he must
form combinations, in order to do things. And these persons, things and
environments come to him – and he to them – by reason of this great Law of
Attraction. And the way he sets into operation this great Law of Attraction is by
the operation of his Desire, and along the lines of Mental Imagery. Do you see the
connection now? So be careful to form, cultivate and manifest the right Desires –
hold to them firmly, strongly and constantly, and you will set into operation this
great Law, which forms an important part of the Secret of Success.
Desire-Force is the motive power leading the activities of Life. It is the basic vital
power, which animates the minds of living things and urges them forth to action.
Without strong Desire no one accomplishes anything worthy of the name – and
the greater the desire the greater will be the amount of energy generated and
manifested, everything else being equal. That is to say, that given a dozen men of
equal intellect, physical health and mental activity – equal in everything else
except Desire, in short, the ones in whom the greatest Desire resides and is
manifested will outstrip the others in attainment – and of these winners the one
in who Desire burns like an unquenchable flame will be the one who will Master
the others by the force of his primitive elementary power.
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Not only does Desire give to the man that inward motive which leads to the
enfoldment of the power within himself, but it does more than this; it causes to
radiate from him the finer and more subtle mental and vital forces of his nature,
which, flowing forth in all directions like the magnetic waves from the magnet, or
the electric waves from the dynamo, influencing all who come within the field of
force. Desire-Force is a real, active, effective force of Nature, and serves to attract,
draw and bring to a center that which is in line with the nature of the Desire. The
much talked of Law of Attraction, of which so much is heard in Mental Science
and the New Thought, depends largely upon the force and power of Desire.
Desire-Force is at the center of the Law of Attraction. There is a tendency in
Nature to attract and draw to the center of a Desire the things, which are needed
to fulfill that Desire. One’s "own will come to him" by reason of his natural force,
which lies behind and underneath the entire phenomena of Mental Influence.
This being so, does it not become at once apparent why one who wishes to
accomplish anything should be sure to create a strong Desire for it, and at the
same time be sure to acquire the art of Visualization so as to form a clear Mental
Picture of the thing Desired – a clear mold in which the materialized reality may
manifest?
Have you ever come in contact with any of the great men of modern business life?
If you have seen these people in action, you will have become conscious of a
subtle, mysterious something about them – a something that you could actually
feel – a something that seemed to draw you to fit in to their schemes, planes, and
desires almost by an irresistible force. These people are all people of the strongest
kind of Desire – their Desire–Force manifests strongly and affects those with
whom they come in contact. Not only this, but their Desire-Force flows from
them in great waves, which occultists inform us soon manifests a circular, or
whirlpool-like motion, swing around and around the center of the Desire – these
men become actual cyclones of Desire into which nearly everything that comes
within its sweep is affected and swept into the vortex. Have we not evidences of
this in the cases of all the great leaders of men – can we not see the operation of
that mighty law of attraction which brings to them their own? We are apt to call
this Will Power, and so it is in a way, back and under the Will in such cases is to
be found the ardent, burning Desire that is the motive force of the attractive
power.
This Desire-Force is a primitive, elemental thing. It is found in the animal
kingdom, and among the lower races of men, perhaps more clearly than among
the higher types of men, but only because in such instances it is seen stripped of
the covering, sheaths, disguises and masks that surround the more civilized
forms and planes of life. But remember this well, the same principle is manifested
under and beneath the polished veneer of civilized life – the Desire-Force of the
cultured leader of men is as elemental as that animating the fierce and shaggy
caveman or the wild Berserker who, naked and half-mad, rushed upon
overwhelming hordes of his enemy, brushing them aside like flies – that is, if you
will but look beneath the polished surface. In the old wild days Desire manifested
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its force on the physical plane – now it manifests on the Mental Plane – that is
the only difference, the Force is the same in both cases.
While we write, there has just been produced on stage a new play that illustrates
this principle. The heroine, the daughter of an old New York family of high social
standing and wealth, has a dream of her life in a former incarnation, in which she
sees herself torn from the arms of her cave-dweller father by the mighty arms of a
fierce savage chief, whose desire is manifested through the physical. She awakens
from her dream, and to her horror soon discovers the face of her dream-captor on
a man who comes into her father’s life in New York. This man comes from the
West, forceful, resourceful and desirous, beating down all before him in the game
of finance. As of old, he places his foot not on the neck of his enemies – but on
the mental-plane, this time, instead of the physical. The same old Desire for
power is strong within him – the same old masterfulness manifests itself. This
man says: “I have never quit; I have never been afraid. "The same old Desire then
flamed up in the savage now manifests in the Master of Wall Street, and between
the force of its Attraction and the coupled and allied force of his Will, he repeats
the performances of his previous incarnation – but on the plane of mental forces
and achievement this time – mind, not muscle, being the instrument through
which the Desire manifests.
We give the above example merely as an illustration of the fact that Desire is the
motivating force that moves the Will into action, and which cause the varied
activity of life, men and things. Desire-Force is a real power in life, and influences
not only tracts, influences and compels other persons and things to swing in
toward the center of the Desire sending forth the currents. In the Secret of
Success, Desire plays a prominent part. Without a Desire for Success, there is no
Success, none. The Law of Attraction is set into motion by Desire. The majority of
the principles advanced in this book have been in the nature of Positive
injunctions – that is, you have been urged to do certain things rather than to not
do the opposite or contrary. But here we come to a place in which the advice must
be given along the negative lines – we must urge you not to do a certain thing. We
allude to that great poison of the mind and Will known as Fear. We do not allude
to physical fear – important though physical courage may be, and as regrettable
as physical cowardice may be considered, still it is not a part of the purpose of
this book to preach against the latter and advise a cultivation of the former
quality – you will find much of that elsewhere. Our purpose here is to combat
that subtle, insidious enemy of true Self-Expression which appears in the shape
and guise of mental fear, forebodings which may be considered as Negative
Thought just as the other principles mentioned in this work may be considered as
Positive Thought.
Fear thoughts is that condition of the mind in which everything is seen through
blue glasses – in which everything seems to bring a sense of the futility of
endeavor – the "I Can’t" principle of mentality, as contrasted with the "I Can and
I Will" mental attitude. It is the noxious weed in the mental garden, which tends
to kill the valuable plants to be found therein. It is the fly in the ointment – the
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spider in the cup of the Wine of Life. So far as we know the first person to use the
word "Fear-Thought" – which has now passed into common use – was Horace
Fletcher, the well-known writer, who coined it to supplant the use of the word
"Worry" in a certain sense. He had pointed out that Anger and Worry were the
two great hindrances to a well-balanced, advanced and progressive mentality, but
many misunderstood him and urged that to abolish Worry meant to cease taking
any consideration of the morrow – a lack of common prudence and forethought.
And so Fletcher coined the word "Fear-Thought" to express a phase of his idea of
"Forethought without Worry," and he entitled his second book on the subject,
"Happiness, as found in Forethought minus Fear-Thought," a very happy
expression of a very happy idea. Fletcher also was the first to advance the idea
that Fear was not a thing-in-itself, but merely an expression of Fear-Thought – a
manifestation of the state of mind known as Fear-Thought. He and others who
have written on the subject, have taught that Fear might be abolished by the
practice of abolishing Fear-Thought from the mind – by driving it out of the
mental chamber – and the best teachers have taught that the best way to drive
out Fear (or any other undesirable mental state) was by cultivating the thought of
the opposite quality of mind by compelling the mind to dwell upon the mental
picture of the desirable quality, and by the appropriate auto-suggestions. The
illustration has often been stated that the way to drive darkness from a room is
not to shovel it out, but to throw open the shutters and let the sunlight stream in,
and that is the best way to neutralize Fear-Thought.
The mental process has aptly been spoken of as "vibrations," a figure that has a
full warrant in modern science. Then, by raising the vibration to the Positive
pitch, the negative vibrations may be counteracted. By cultivating the qualities
recommended in the other lessons of this book. Fear-Thought may be
neutralized. The poison of Fear-Thought is insidious and subtle, but it slowly
creeps through the veins until