Section 11 - Part B:

 The Psychology of Making Money 

This Part and both Parts of Lesson Twelve are devoted exclusively to psychological and practical ways and means of increasing your income. 

I have been for a number of years engaged in helping men and women all over the world to solve their problems, and have found that in the great majority of cases the big problem is how to get more money. This money problem has been solved so many times for so many people in so many stations of life that I have come to know it in all its phases and how to deal with it in all sorts of situations; and in this part of the Course on money-making I will explain in simple language the methods and formulae through which we have helped so many others to make more money.  

I shall make no attempt to tell you how to conduct the routine details of your work or business, for I am concerned here not so much with the details of your business as with the personality behind that business. For it is your personality, your mental attitude towards your work and your outlook upon life, that make all the difference between success and failure in any business.  

All human beings of just average intelligence have within them the judgment and common sense necessary to make all the money they need in order to have and do the things they desire to have and do. This ability is all too often buried beneath mental handicaps that mean failure or disappointing half-success. My first step will be to discuss some of these handicaps as I have found them to exist, and to suggest ways and means of getting rid of them that have proved effective in other cases.  

The Infinite Intelligence that exists in nature does not mock its creatures by planting within them a desire for things that they cannot obtain. When people feel cramped and limited by lack of sufficient money to get the things and conditions they want, this feeling of limitation and lack is the urge of a bigger, nobler phase of themselves to go forward and get a better income. They need simply to unshackle their abilities and put them to work, and their incomes increase.  

At this point, I ask you to take stock of yourself. Does something within you that prompt you to live a bigger, nobler, better and freer life than your present income will permit? That prompting comes from the bigger, better side of your nature, and is a challenge to the little doubting, sneering, fearful side of your nature which tells you that you cannot have and do the things you want. You have two sides to your nature, both so well developed in most cases that you often think of yourself as two separate personalities or selves - the big, noble, loving, kindly and unafraid self that craves the better things of life, and the mean little selfish, fearing, doubting, unkindly self, objecting to every hope and plan and snarling discouragement at every turn. Instances have come to my attention in which these two personalities had finally separated, so that when people are showing one personality they had no recollection of what transpired when they were showing the other. The famous novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is based upon this occasional phenomenon.

Take Stock of Yourself  

Which of these two personalities dominates your life? Stop here, consider it carefully and give yourself a frank and honest answer. For I am here getting at the deep foundation on which your financial limitation rests. If your nobler self dominates your life, you have no need of these methods, for your income is already sufficient for your every need. If your nobler self sometimes dominates your life, and your little self sometimes dominates it, you are neither succeeding nor failing, but just struggling along hoping for something better that will never come to you - unless and until your bigger, nobler self-gains the mastery. If your little self dominates your life all the time, you are a failure at everything you undertake, embittered, discouraged and disheartened.  

The practical work put before you here is the killing off of the little self that discourages, hinders and defeats you. Are you ready to begin it? You might as well make up your mind here and now to begin this work, for you can never substantially and permanently increase your income until you put the "little fellow" within you out of your business and go into partnership with the "big fellow". The simple work placed before you here, if done properly, will accomplish just that happy result.  

The little self within uses many methods for keeping your income down, but his favourite method is to make you dissatisfied in your present business or work. This is his stronghold. We will now attack him in it. It requires courage on your part. It is a common sort of warfare, and when you start to undertake it for the first time there seems to be but little to be gained by it. You are here seeking ways and means of making more money, and it is quite probable that you would like to make it in some other way than in your present line of employment. I am fully aware, therefore, that you will be disappointed when I tell you that you can never get ahead as you wish until you have become reconciled to and have mastered your present work. 

How to Master your Present Work  

I know this may seem to you to be a bitter pill that I am prescribing. The chances are that you are tired of the grind and drudgery of your present work or business, and that you now hope that I might tell you how to jump immediately into a fine pleasant business with a big income. I realise that you will probably be disappointed when I tell you that increased incomes are not made in that way. You must first take the pill I have here prescribed - you must get on friendly terms with your present work.  

Becoming reconciled to your present work does not mean that you will have to stay in it all your life, or for any great length of time. As a matter of fact, you can get into any business you prefer, and get from it the income you need in order to live the life you want to live - provided you will do the necessary work of making yourself worthy to enter it and receive the income.  

While, too, I am bluntly stating facts I might as well state another one. You are now receiving all the income you are worthy to receive and ready to use. Your outlook upon life and your attitude towards your work have given you your present financial status. You are occupying the place in the financial world to which your present psychological status adapts you. If you improve that status you will rise. If you make your psychological status worse, you will sink deeper. This is just another way of repeating that your way of thinking about your business and financial affairs has made your income what it is; and you can never permanently and materially change your income until you change yourself. This is not nearly as big a job as you might think. You will find it easy and pleasant work. It will not take very long. You will soon begin to get surprisingly happy results - and in cash!  

Since you can never get ahead as you wish until you are mentally on friendly terms with your present work, let us get down to the business of building up and cultivating such terms. Your work is useful to many people. It contributes to the comfort, welfare and happiness of many men, women and children. Otherwise, it would not pay you even the barest kind of a living income. Take a few minutes to figure out all that it contributes to the welfare and happiness of other people. Think of the raw materials that go into the things you work with, and of the market for those materials that your work is helping to maintain. For instance, consider the pencil with which you write. The lead in the pencil comes from graphite mines all over the world - and when you make a pencil note, you are helping the miners to provide for themselves and their families, and helping to pay dividends on the money invested in the content mines. You are also contributing to the support of aircraft, ships, railways and road vehicles, for the graphite must come to you by air, sea or land. You are so helping to maintain the transport organisations and employees, coal-miners, iron and steel foundrymen, carpenters, machinists, and so on until you will get dizzy tying to think of all of them. Trace in the same way the sources of the wood of the pencil, and, if it has one, its metal thimble and rubber tip, the varnish and printing, and the glue that binds its two halves together. Then trace the sources of any of the other things you use or handle in the same way, including the clothes and shoes you wear out in your work.  

Think of the Wonderful Work you are Doing  

If you will do this simple bit of thinking, you will be bound to agree with me that you are doing wonderful work. Then realise all the skill, thought and effort that you put into your work, and the things you accomplish in doing it; and you will also agree with me that you are doing your work in a wonderful way. Then think of your work from the standpoint of the service you give to others; and you will realise that you are giving wonderful service. Then think of your pay or income. It may be smaller than you would like it to be; but think of each pound, and of all the things that it provides for you and your loved ones, and that it provides for others after you have passed it along in various lines of trade. Inadequate though it may be, it is still wonderful pay. I am making free use of this word "wonderful" but it is warranted, for it is properly used in all these places.  

Cultivate the habit of thinking to yourself in this little rhyme: "I'm doing wonderful work in a wonderful way; I'm giving wonderful service for wonderful pay". Whisper it over several times after you have retired for the night. Let it run through your mind while you are at work. Make it a thought habit. It will remove one of the biggest barriers between you and a better income. It will put you on the way to an increased income. As you cultivate this habit of thought, you will rise up in the great sea of financial affairs. You will enter into a wonderful new world of possibilities, and things will begin to come your way.  

This is the first simple step towards earning more money. But it is an important step. Take it. Other steps will be described in due course. But they will be of no value unless you first take this step.  

Whatever job you do, make it a good one. Put all your ability into your present work, with the idea of rendering the very largest possible measure of service through that work; and let the little rhyme I have suggested keep running through your mind. 

Look up and smile! A better income is just ahead!