So much for the psychological viewpoint of a definite purpose. Let us now turn to the economic side of the question.
If a steamship lost its rudder, in mid-ocean, and began circling around, it would soon exhaust its fuel supply without reaching shore, despite the fact that it would use up enough energy to carry it to shore and back several times.
The man who labors without a definite purpose that is backed up by a definite plan for its attainment, resembles the ship that has lost its rudder. Hard labor and good intentions are not sufficient to carry a man through to success, for how may a man be sure that he has attained success unless he has established in his mind some definite object that he wishes?
Every well built house started in the form of a definite purpose plus a definite plan in the nature of a set of blueprints. Imagine what would happen if one tried to build a house by the haphazard method, without plans. Workmen would be in each other’s way, building material would be piled all over the lot before the foundation was completed, and everybody on the job would have a different notion as to how the house ought to be built. Result, chaos and misunderstandings and cost that would be prohibitive.
Yet had you ever stopped to think that most people finish school, take up employment or enter a trade or profession without the slightest conception of anything that even remotely resembles a definite purpose or a definite plan? In view of the fact that science has provided reasonably accurate ways and means of analyzing character and determining the life-work for which people are best fitted, does it not seem a modern tragedy that ninety-five per cent of the adult population of the world is made up of men and women who are failures because they have not found their proper niches in the world’s work?
If success depends upon power, and if power is organized effort, and if the first step in the direction of organization is a definite purpose, then one may easily see why such a purpose is essential.
Until a man selects a definite purpose in life he dissipates his energies and spreads his thoughts over so many subjects and in so many different directions that they lead not to power, but to indecision and weakness.
With the aid of a small reading glass you can teach yourself a great lesson on the value of organized effort. Through the use of such a glass you can focus the sun-rays on a definite spot so strongly that they will burn a hole through a plank. Remove the glass (which represents the definite purpose) and the same rays of sun may shine on that same plank for a million years without burning it.
A thousand electric dry batteries, when properly organized and connected together with wires, will produce enough power to run a good sized piece of machinery for several hours, but take those same cells singly, disconnected, and not one of them would exert enough energy to turn the machinery over once. The faculties of your mind might properly be likened to those dry cells. When you organize your faculties, according to the plan laid down in the sixteen lessons of this Reading Course on the Law of Success, and direct them toward the attainment of a definite purpose in life, you then take advantage of the co-operative or accumulative principle out of which power is developed, which is called Organized Effort.
Andrew Carnegie’s advice was this: “Place all your eggs in one basket and then watch the basket to see that no one kicks it over.” By that advice he meant, of course, that we should not dissipate any of our energies by engaging in side lines. Carnegie was a sound economist and he knew that most men would do well if they so harnessed and directed their energies that some one thing would be done well.
When the plan back of this Reading Course was first born I remember taking the first manuscript to a professor of the University of Texas, and in a spirit of enthusiasm I suggested to him that I had discovered a principle that would be of aid to me in every public speech I delivered thereafter, because I would be better prepared to organize and marshal my thoughts.
He looked at the outline of the fifteen points for a few minutes, then turned to me and said:
“Yes, your discovery is going to help you make better speeches, but that is not all it will do. It will help you become a more effective writer, for I have noticed in your previous writings a tendency to scatter your thoughts. For instance, if you started to describe a beautiful mountain yonder in the distance you would be apt to sidetrack your description by calling attention to a beautiful bed of wild flowers, or a running brook, or a singing bird, detouring here and there, zigzag fashion, before finally arriving at the proper point from which to view the mountain. In the future you are going to find it much less difficult to describe an object, whether you are speaking or writing, because your fifteen points represent the very foundation of organization.”
Side note: The best compensation for doing things is the ability to do more.
A man who had no legs once met a man who was blind. To prove conclusively that the lame man was a man of vision he proposed to the blind man that they form an alliance that would be of great benefit to both. “You let me climb upon your back,” said he to the blind man, “then I will use your legs and you may use my eyes. Between the two of us we will get along more rapidly.”
Out of allied effort comes greater power. This is a point that is worthy of much repetition, because it forms one of the most important parts of the foundation of this Reading Course. The great fortunes of the world have been accumulated through the use of this principle of allied effort. That which one man can accomplish single handed, during an entire life-time, is but meager at best, no matter how well organized that man may be, but that which one man may accomplish through the principle of alliance with other men is practically without limitation.
That “master mind” to which Carnegie referred during my interview with him was made up of more than a score of minds. In that group were men of practically every temperament and inclination. Each man was there to play a certain part and he did nothing else. There was perfect understanding and teamwork between these men. It was Carnegie’s business to keep harmony among them.
And he did it wonderfully well.
If you are familiar with the game of football you know, of course, that the winning team is the one that best co-ordinates the efforts of its players. Team-work is the thing that wins. It is the same in the great game of life.
In your struggle for success you should keep constantly in mind the necessity of knowing what it is that you want—of knowing precisely what is your definite purpose—and the value of the principle of organized effort in the attainment of that which constitutes your definite purpose.
In a vague sort of way nearly everyone has a definite purpose—namely, the desire for money! But this is not a definite purpose within the meaning of the term as it is used in this lesson. Before your purpose could be considered definite, even though that purpose were the accumulation of money, you would have to reach a decision as to the precise method through which you intend to accumulate that money. It would be insufficient for you to say that you would make money by going into some sort of business. You would have to decide just what line of business. You would also have to decide just where you would locate. You would also have to decide the business policies under which you would conduct your business.
In answering the question, “What Is Your Definite Purpose In Life,” that appears in the questionnaire which I have used for the analysis of more than 16,000 people, many answered about as follows:
“My definite purpose in life is to be of as much service to the world as possible and earn a good living.”
That answer is about as definite as a frog’s conception of the size of the universe is accurate!
The object of this lesson is not to inform you as to what your life-work should be, for indeed this could be done with accuracy only after you had been completely analyzed, but it is intended as a means of impressing upon your mind a clear conception of the value of a definite purpose of some nature, and of the value of understanding the principle of organized effort as a means