Elmer Gates
John W. Davis
Samuel Gompers
F. W. Woolworth
Judge Daniel T. Wright
(One of the author’s law instructors)
Elbert Hubbard
Luther Burbank
O. H. Harriman
John Burroughs
E. H. Harriman
Charles P. Steinmetz
Frank Vanderlip
Theodore Roosevelt
Wm. H. French
Dr. Alexander Graham Bell
(To whom the author owes credit for most of Lesson One).
Of the men named, perhaps Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie should be acknowledged as having contributed most toward the building of this course, for the reason that it was Andrew Carnegie who first suggested the writing of the course and Henry Ford whose life-work supplied much of the material out of which the course was developed.
Some of these men are now deceased, but to those who are still living the author wishes to make here grateful acknowledgment of the service they have rendered, without which this course never could have been written.
The author has studied the majority of these men at close range, in person. With many of them he enjoys, or did enjoy before their death, the privilege of close personal friendship which enabled him to gather from their philosophy facts that would not have been available under other conditions.
The author is grateful for having enjoyed the privilege of enlisting the services of the most powerful men on earth, in the building of the Law of Success course. That privilege has been remuneration enough for the work done, if nothing more were ever received for it.
These men have been the back-bone and the foundation and the skeleton of American business, finance, industry and statesmanship.
The Law of Success course epitomizes the philosophy and the rules of procedure which made each of these men a great power in his chosen field of endeavor. It has been the author’s intention to present the course in the plainest and most simple terms available, so it could be mastered by very young men and young women, of the high-school age.
With the exception of the psychological law referred to in Lesson One as the “Master Mind,” the author lays no claim to having created anything basically new in this course. What he has done, however, has been to organize old truths and known laws into PRACTICAL, USABLE FORM, where they may be properly interpreted and applied by the workaday man whose needs call for a philosophy of simplicity.
In passing upon the merits of the Law of Success Judge Elbert H. Gary said: “Two outstanding features connected with the philosophy impress me most. One is the simplicity with which it has been presented, and the other is the fact that its soundness is so obvious to all that it will be immediately accepted.”
The student of this course is warned against passing judgment upon it before having read the entire sixteen lessons. This especially applies to this Introduction, in which it has been necessary to include brief reference to subjects of a more or less technical and scientific nature. The reason for this will be obvious after the student has read the entire sixteen lessons.
The student who takes up this course with an open mind, and sees to it that his or her mind remains “open” until the last lesson shall have been read, will be richly rewarded with a broader and more accurate view of life as a whole.
Lesson One. The Master Mind
“You Can Do It if You Believe You Can!”
This is a course on the fundamentals of Success.
Success is very largely a matter of adjusting one’s self to the ever-varying and changing environments of life, in a spirit of harmony and poise. Harmony is based upon understanding of the forces constituting one’s environment; therefore, this course is in reality a blueprint that may be followed straight to success, because it helps the student to interpret, understand and make the most of these environmental forces of life.
Before you begin reading the Law of Success lessons you should know something of the history of the course. You should know exactly what the course promises to those who follow it until they have assimilated the laws and principles upon which it is based. You should know its limitations as well as its possibilities as an aid in your fight for a place in the world.
From the viewpoint of entertainment the Law of Success course would be a poor second for most any of the monthly periodicals of the “Snappy Story” variety which may be found upon the news stands of today.
The course has been created for the serious-minded person who devotes at least a portion of his or her time to the business of succeeding in life. The author of the Law of Success course has not intended to compete with those who write purely for the purpose of entertaining.
The author’s aim, in preparing this course, has been of a two-fold nature, namely, first—to help the earnest student find out what are his or her weaknesses, and, secondly—to help create a DEFINITE PLAN for bridging those weaknesses.
The most successful men and women on earth have had to correct certain weak spots in their personalities before they began to succeed. The most outstanding of these weaknesses which stand between men and women and success are INTOLERANCE, CUPIDITY, GREED, JEALOUSY, SUSPICION, REVENGE, EGOTISM, CONCEIT, THE TENDENCY TO REAP WHERE THEY HAVE NOT SOWN, and the HABIT OF SPENDING MORE THAN THEY EARN.
Side note: Time is a Master Worker that heals the wounds of temporary defeat, and equalizes the inequalities and rights the wrongs of the world. There is nothing “Impossible” with time!
All of these common enemies of mankind, and many more not here mentioned, are covered by the Law of Success course in such a manner that any person of reasonable intelligence may master them with but little effort or inconvenience.
You should know, at the very outset, that the Law of Success course has long since passed through the experimental state; that it already has to its credit a record of achievement that is worthy of serious thought and analysis. You should know, also, that the Law of Success course has been examined and endorsed by some of the most practical minds of this generation.
The Law of Success course was first used as a lecture, and was delivered by its author in practically every city and in many of the smaller localities, throughout the United States, over a period of more than seven years. Perhaps you were one of the many hundreds of thousands of people who heard this lecture.
During these lectures the author had assistants located in the audiences for the purpose of interpreting the reaction of those who heard the lecture, and in this manner he learned exactly what effect it had upon people. As a result of this study and analysis many changes were made.
The first big victory was gained for the Law of Success philosophy when it was used by the author as the basis of a course with which 3,000 men and women were trained as a sales army. The majority of
