Part 1 (2/2)
[Sidenote: Futility of Advice in Business]
It is well to tell you beforehand that in this _Basic Course of Reading_ we shall be content with no mere cataloguing of the factors that are commonly regarded as essential to success. We shall do no moralizing.
You will find here no elaboration of the ancient aphorisms, ”Honesty is the best policy,” and ”Genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains.”
The world has had its fill of mere exhortations to industry, frugality and perseverance. For some thousands of years men have preached to the lazy man, ”Be industrious,” and to the timid man, ”Be bold.” But such phrases never have solved and never can solve the problem for the man who feels himself lacking in both industry and courage.
[Sidenote: The Why and the How]
It is easy enough to tell the salesman that he must approach his ”prospect” with tact and confidence. But tact and confidence are not qualities that can be a.s.sumed and discarded like a Sunday coat. Industry and courage and tact and confidence are well enough, but we must know the Why and the How of these things.
It is well enough to preach that the secret of achievement is to be found in ”courage-faith” and ”courage-confidence,” and that the way to acquire these qualities is to a.s.sume that you have them. There is no denying the undoubted fact that men and women have been rescued from the deepest mire of poverty and despair and lifted to planes of happy abundance by what is known as ”faith.” But what is ”faith”? And ”faith”
in What? And Why? And How?
[Sidenote: Fundamental Training for Efficiency]
Obviously we cannot achieve certain and definite results in this or any other field so long as we continue to deal with materials we do not understand. Yet that is what all men are doing today. The elements of truth are befogged in vague and amateurish mysticism, and the subject of individual efficiency when we get beyond mere preaching and moralizing is a chaos of isms.
The time is ripe for a real a.n.a.lysis of these important problems,--a serious and scientific a.n.a.lysis with a clear and practical exposition of facts and principles and rules for conduct.
Men and women must be fundamentally trained so that they can look deep into their own minds and see where the screw is loose, where oil is needed, and so readjust themselves and their living for a greater efficiency.
[Sidenote: The Virus of Failure]
The embittered, the superst.i.tious, the prejudiced, all those who scorpion-like sting themselves with the virus of failure, must be given an antidote of understanding that will repair their deranged mental machinery.
The conscientious but foolish business man who is worrying himself into failure and an early grave must be taught the physiological effects of ideas and given a new standard of values.
The profligate must be lured from his emotional excesses and debaucheries, not by moralizings, but by showing him just how these things fritter his energies and r.e.t.a.r.d his progress.
[Sidenote: Practical Formulas for Every Day]
It must be made plain to the successful promoter, to the rich banker, how a man may be a financial success and yet a miserable failure so far as true happiness is concerned, and how by scientific self-development he can acquire greater riches within than all his vaults of steel will hold.
This _Basic Course of Reading_ offers just such an a.n.a.lysis and exposition of fundamental principles. It furnishes definite and scientific answers to the problems of life. It will reveal to you unused or unintelligently used mental forces vastly greater than those now at your command.
[Sidenote: Your Undiscovered Resources]
We go even further, and say that this _Basic Course of Reading_ provides a practicable formula for the everyday use of these vast resources. It will enable you to acquire the magical qualities and still more magical effects that spell success and happiness, without straining your will to the breaking point and making life a burden. It will give you a definite prescription like the physician's, ”Take one before meals,” and as easily compounded, which will enable you to be prosperous and happy.
In the development of one's innate resources, such as powers of observation, imagination, correct judgment, alertness, resourcefulness, application, concentration, and the faculty of taking prompt advantage of opportunities, the study of the mental machine is bound to be the first step. It must be the ultimate resource for self-training in efficiency for the promoter with his appeal to the cupidity and imaginations of men as surely as for the artist in his search for poetic inspiration.
[Sidenote: Man's Mind Machine]
No man can get the best results from any machine unless he understands its mechanism. We shall draw aside the curtain and show you the mind in operation.
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