WHEN
EDWIN C. BARNES CLIMBED down from the freight train in Orange, NJ, more than thirty years ago, he may have resembled a tramp, but his thoughts were those
As he made his way from the railroad tracks to
Thomas A. Edison’s office, his mind was at work. He saw himself standing in Edison’s presence. He heard himself asking Mr. Edison for an opportunity to carry out the one consuming obsession of his life, a burning desire to become the business associate of the great inventor. Barnes’s desire was not a hope! It was not a wish! It was a keen, pulsating desire, which transcended everything else. It was definite.
Five years passed before the chance he had been seeking made its appearance. During all those years, not one ray of hope, not one promise of attainment of his desire had been held out to him. To everyone except himself, he appeared only another cog in the Edison business wheel, but in his own mind, he was the partner of Edison every minute of the time, from the very day that he first went to work there.
When he went to Orange, he did not say to himself,
“I will try to induce Edison to give me a job of some sort.” He said, “I will see Edison and put him on notice that I have come to go into business with him.”
He did not say, “I will work there for a few months, and if I get no encouragement, I will quit and get a job somewhere else.” He did say, “I will start anywhere. I
will do anything Edison tells me to do, but before I am
through, I will be his associate.” He did not say, “I will keep my eyes open for another opportunity, in case I fail to get what I want in the Edison organization.” He said, “There is but ONE
thing in this world that I am determined to have, and that is a business association with Thomas A. Edison. I will burn all bridges behind me and stake my entire future on my ability to get what I want.” He left himself no possible way of retreat. He had to win or perish!
That is all there is to the Barnes story of success! Every human being who reaches the age of understanding of the purpose of money wishes for it. Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure will bring riches.
The method by which desire for riches can be transmuted into its financial equivalent consists of six definite, practical steps:
FIRST. Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely
to say, “I want plenty of money.” Be definite as to the amount.
SECOND. Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.”)
THIRD. Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.
FOURTH. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
FIFTH. Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.
SIXTH. Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night
and once after arising in the morning.
We who are in this race for riches should be encouraged to know that this changed world in which we live is demanding new ideas, new ways of doing things, new leaders, new inventions, new methods of teaching, new methods of marketing, new books, new literature, new features for media and movies. Behind all this demand for new and better things, there is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is
DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE—the knowledge of
what one wants and a burning desire to possess it.
We who desire to accumulate riches should remember the real leaders of the world always have been men who harnessed and put into practical use the intangible, unseen forces of unborn opportunity and have converted those forces (or impulses of thought) into skyscrapers, cities, factories, airplanes, automobiles, and every form of convenience that makes life more pleasant.
Tolerance and an open mind are practical necessities of the dreamer of today. Those who are afraid of new ideas are doomed before they start. Never has there been a time more favorable to pioneers than the present. True, there is no wild and woolly west to be conquered, as in the days of the covered wagon, but there is a vast business, financial, and industrial world to be remolded and redirected along new and better lines.
In planning to acquire your share of the riches, let
no one influence you to scorn the dreamer. To win the
big stakes in this changed world, you must catch the
spirit of the great pioneers of the past, whose dreams
have given to civilization all that it has of value, the
spirit which serves as the lifeblood of our own country— your opportunity and mine to develop and market
our talents.
The Wright brothers dreamed of a machine that would fly through the air. Now one may see evidence all over the world that they dreamed soundly. The world has become accustomed to new discoveries. Nay, it has shown a willingness to reward the dreamer who gives the world a new idea. Awake, arise, and assert yourself, you dreamers of the world. Your star is now in the ascendancy. The world is filled with an abundance of
OPPORTUNITY which the dreamers of the past never knew.
"The oak sleeps in the acorn. The bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of reality." James Allen
Remember, too, that many who succeed in life get off to a bad start and pass through heartbreaking struggles before they “arrive.” The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at the moment of some crisis through which they are introduced to their “other selves.” Edison, the world’s greatest inventor and scientist, was a “tramp” telegraph operator. He failed innumerable times before he was driven, finally, to the discovery of the genius which slept within his brain. Scottish poet
Robert Burns was an illiterate country lad. He was cursed by poverty and grew up to be a drunkard in the bargain.
The world was made better for him having lived, because he clothed beautiful thoughts in poetry and thereby plucked a thorn and planted a rose in its place.
Booker T. Washington was born in slavery, handicapped by race and color. Because he was tolerant, had an open mind at all times on all subjects, and was a
DREAMER, he left his impress for good on an entire country.
Beethoven was deaf, Milton was blind, but their names will last as long as time endures, because they dreamed and translated their dreams into organized thought. There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief. Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage, and belief.
Desire Outwits Mother Nature
Many years before the birth of my son, I had written, “Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds.” For the first time, I wondered if that statement was true. Lying on the bed in front of me was a newly born child without any physical sign of ears, the natural equipment of hearing. Even though he might hear and speak, he was obviously disfigured for life.
What could I do about it? Somehow I would find a way to transplant into that child’s mind my own burning desire for ways and means of conveying sound to his brain without the aid of ears.
As soon as the child was old enough to cooperate, I would fill his mind so completely with a burning desire to hear that Nature would, by methods of her own, translate it into physical reality. One day, I discovered that he could hear me quite clearly when I spoke with my lips touching his mastoid bone, or at the base of the brain. These discoveries placed in my possession the necessary media by which I began to translate into reality my burning desire to help my son develop hearing and speech. By that time, he was making stabs at speaking certain words.
The outlook was far from encouraging, but DESIRE BACKED BY FAITH knows no such word as impossible. Having determined that he could hear the sound of my voice plainly, I began, immediately, to transfer to his mind the desire to hear and speak. I soon discovered that the child enjoyed bedtime stories, so I went to work, creating stories designed to develop in him
self-reliance, imagination, and a keen desire to hear and to be normal.
The little deaf boy went through the grades, high school, and college without being able to hear his teachers, except when they shouted loudly at close range. He did not go to a school for the deaf. We would not permit him to learn the sign language. We were determined that he should live a normal life and associate with normal children, and we stood by that decision, although
it cost us many heated debates with school officials.
While he was in high school, he tried an electrical hearing aid, but it was of no value to him due, we believed, to a condition that was disclosed when the child was six, when a doctor operated on one side of the boy’s head and discovered that there was no sign of natural hearing equipment. During his last week in college (eighteen years after the operation), something happened which marked the most important turning point of his life. Through what seemed to be mere chance, he came into possession of an electrical hearing device, which was sent to him on trial. He was slow about testing it, due to his disappointment with a similar device. Finally, he picked the instrument up and more or less carelessly placed it on his head, hooked up the battery, and lo! as if by a stroke of magic, his lifelong desire for normal hearing became a reality! For the first time in his life, he heard practically as well as any person with normal hearing.
Overjoyed because of the CHANGED WORLD which had been brought to him through his hearing device, he rushed to the telephone, called his mother, and heard her voice perfectly. The next day, he plainly heard the voices of his professors in class for the first time in his life! He heard the radio. He heard the talking pictures. For the first time in his life, he could converse
freely with other people without the necessity of them having to speak loudly. Truly, he had come into possession of a changed world. We had refused to accept Nature’s error, and by PERSISTENT DESIRE, we had induced Nature to correct that error through the only practical means available.
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