Section 12 - Part B:

 Getting Down to work 

I have already begun the job of getting you on friendly terms with your present work. I have dealt with your Inferiority Complex, and discussed methods of eliminating it. I have also discussed the setting of your first goal.  

These three things treated in Part B of Lesson Eleven and in the previous Part of this Lesson, simple though they seem, are the principal obstacles to success in all lines of endeavour, including the making of money. If you have done the simple work already suggested, these three great obstacles to getting the income you desire are beginning to crumble before the assaults of your strengthened courage and new faith in yourself. These three great obstacles are not entirely out of your way, of course; but they are beginning to move - and you realise it.  

At this point your new faith and fresh courage are beginning to urge you forward towards some kind of constructive work. Having become acquainted with your hindrances, and realised that they never were as real as they seemed, you now want to break through them or overcome them, and go on to the achievement of what you have set out to achieve - a better income.  

As you face the light of this new situation, you are somewhat blinded by it - you are not quite certain just how you should or can proceed in a practical way to begin to get some more money. You don't see just how you can make your work or business produce more income. It may be that you work for a salary or for wages, and there seems no immediate prospect of a promotion or increase. I will now deal with these practical problems.  

If you have a business of your own - a shop, a factory or a profession - your first duty is to it, and your first attention should be given to it. If it isn't worth the very best that is in you, then it isn't worth having, and you ought to make up your mind today to make it your chief aim to get out of business. If it is not really a wonderful business, measured by the standards already described, you ought to be ashamed to stay in it.  

We will assume for a moment that you have taken stock of yourself and your work and that you have come to look on the business as a worthy one rendering real service to many people. Perhaps it isn't just the business you would prefer, if you were properly financed and free to make a new choice, but I am assuming for a moment that you realise it is a good and worthy business. 

Tomorrow morning when you go to work carry into it only your bigger, nobler, better self. Leave the "little fellow" behind altogether. Dress neatly. Set your face in a pleasant expression. Smile when you meet people. Speak in a pleasant tone of voice. Say pleasant things. Tell people you are glad to see them looking so well and happy. Let your main purpose in your business all through the day be to give the very best possible service to everyone who comes your way.  

Tomorrow night when you leave your business, go out as you came in - finish the day as you began it. Be sure to leave the "little fellow" outside before you go into your home, whether it is a family home or a flat. Make the evening pleasant for everyone around you. Radiate cheer. Act as though you were more successful, happy and contented. 

Be Helpful, Sympathetic and Cheerful  

If anyone asks about business, tell him that it is good, all things considered, and that it is improving - which will actually be true in a very short time after you begin living this kind of a life. At business and away from it, let your presence be a helpful, sympathetic and cheerful presence - the main idea being to give at all times the very best service to those with whom you come in contact. Then live all other days after the same pattern. If you fail occasionally and lapse into your bad old habits, just begin all over again the next day. It will be easier after you have practised it for a while. Don't be discouraged if you "fall from grace" a few times.  

If you happen to be a "selfish old grouser", it will be difficult for you to start such a new career of unselfish cheer and service. The very thought of it will be unpleasant to you. But do it anyhow. As Hamlet said to his mother: "Assume a virtue, if you have it not." It will be a good tonic for you, and will eliminate some of the mental poisons that are hampering you and holding your income down. 

Tomorrow night after you go to bed, let this thought run through your mind many times: "I'm doing better business every day - I'm doing better business every day." It doesn't matter at all whether you think this is true or not. If you will follow the simple instructions suggested up to this point, it will be true in many ways, whether you are already getting more money or not. You will be laying the foundation of a bigger and better business, and laying this foundation is doing better business than before you began it, even though the increased income has not yet begun to come in. But it will not be very long before it does begin to come in.  

So don't be afraid of this little formula. Let it run through your mind. If you occupy a room to yourself, actually whisper it. After you get too drowsy to think or whisper the complete formula any more, go to sleep hearing the ticking of the little clock say: "Better business every day - better business every day." This will carry the suggestion of improving business to your wonderfully wise and shrewd Subconscious Mind, and it will move you to do whatever is necessary to make the business better from an income standpoint.  

I shall soon say something further that will be of interest to men and women who are in business for themselves; but for a moment we turn our attention to men and women who are not in business for themselves, but working for someone else.  

You Work for Someone Else  

If you are an employee working for a salary or wages, I ask you to give your attention to my advice to the business man and woman about beginning, living and finishing the day in the spirit of good service. It is not necessary to repeat all those things here; but they are just as important for you as for those who own their own businesses. When you begin giving to the world a measure of loyal, cheerful service that is worth more than you are now receiving, your pay will be increased. You may think your employer is hard and mean, and you may be right about it - though the chances are that you are mistaken.  

Employers who seem mean and unappreciative usually are the products of their environment, and not infrequently the products of their employees. That is, shirking, disloyal, unappreciative, clock-watching employees often make the employer seem mean and unappreciative. Anyway, this kind of employer is often a lonely man or woman who also feels neglected and unappreciated. Such people dearly love any special show of interest in themselves or their business, and are quick to notice

the employee who is really faithful and loyal, and trying to give the best service. Therefore, think of all the things you can do to make yourself even more useful to your employer's business. Stop thinking of yourself as a machine set to the work of making certain mechanical movements for a certain number of hours for a certain amount of pay, for that mental attitude means an endless grind for you as long as you live, with never a chance to get ahead and have the things you want.  

Study your work, and think out for yourself just how it fits into your employer's business. Plan ways and means of doing your work better and making yourself more valuable. If an idea along these lines occurs to you, give it mature consideration - and then discuss it with your employer, not in an insolent, self-opinionated way, but in a gentle, considerate way.  

How to Grow and Prosper  

None of these efforts will be wasted. You will get what you really earn in any position you happen to be. If you grow too big for your present job by applying these principles, you will just naturally, easily and pleasantly slide out of it and into a bigger and better job. Not only that, but you will go on and on to the work you want to do, perhaps to a business of your own, and to an income that will enable you to live the life you want to live.  

When you go to bed tomorrow night - you who are working for someone else - think or whisper many times these words: "My work is useful more and more to my employer than before." Let these words mean to you that you are really giving more and more service each day, because you are using these methods of thought and life. And realise all the time that as your work becomes more valuable, you will become more and more likely to earn more pay. Then, when you get drowsy, go to sleep hearing the ticking of the clock say: "I'll soon be getting better pay - I'll soon be getting better pay." Let these words ticked out by the clock mean that you are already actually earning more pay by giving a better service, and that soon you will get an increase in your pay.  

These methods for increasing salaries and wages should not be taken to mean that you will always be dependent on a salary or wages. For, as I have told you earlier, it is completely within your power to get into business for yourself, to do the things you want to do, and to earn the income you set as your final goal. I am here dealing with your situation as it is today. I am facing the problems that face you now, and working to improve the immediate situation in which you are now. I am beginning at the beginning, because that is the only proper place to begin, no matter how far you intend to go. I am concentrating on the work immediately at hand, so that you may make that work a stepping-stone to the bigger and better things that lie ahead of you.  

Ways of Achieving Success  

I now come to the end of this part of the Course - the part that deals with practical ways and means of increasing your income. But I want to impress on you again the necessity of practising the methods contained in this Course, as well as reading it carefully.  

To sum up, the best-known method of drawing on the Subconscious Mind is by isolating a single thought that we wish to impress on it. A thought impressed on it tends to become a reality in the objective physical world, for the Subconscious Mind has a habit of making its thoughts actually materialise. In that way it builds and repairs the body, and not with hammer, saw and pincers. In that same way, too, it tends to materialise the thoughts that you isolate and impress on it in your life and affairs. The best-known method of isolating a thought and impressing it on the Subconscious Mind is embodied in the simple formulae described in the Course. Use them well! Use them accurately and persistently until you get results. 

The Subconscious Mind also delights in pictures and symbols, and tends to make them come to life in the affairs of those who impress them on it. Some people can close their eyes in the dark and picture the things they have in mind. This is a valuable gift and should be cultivated - beginning by making mental pictures of simple things and going on to more complicated things. When you can make a mental picture of an apple or a rose, you can, with a little practice, make a mental picture of a television set, or a home, or a car - or a sum of money. Make a mental picture of a bundle of paper money, with a band around it, and on the band certain figures giving the total of the bundle, just as these packages are bundled and labelled in a bank. Begin with a sum that does not seem unreasonable, and set that as your first goal in this experiment.  

When you get your mental picture clear, whether it is of a bundle of money, a house, a car, or anything else you desire, hold on to the picture and go to sleep hearing the ticking of the clock say: "I have made it and it's mine - I have made it and it's mine" - letting each tick of the clock measure a syllable of the thought. If you don't go to sleep holding the picture the first night you fry it, keep on night after night until you do go to sleep with the picture in your mind.  

This formula takes the mental picture, and then impresses it on the Subconscious Mind as if it had already been made and possessed - which is true in the pattern-realm, and later becomes true in the physical realm. For it is in the pattern-realm where all things that are later to appear physically are really made.  

How to Cultivate the Gift of Making Mental Pictures

Some people who cannot easily make mental pictures with their eyes closed in the dark can cultivate this "gift" by closing their eyes in the dark and looking for light in the darkness. At first there may be nothing but the pitch black of blindness, but with persistent practice a dark dirty red may appear. By more persistent practice this red may become clear, and pass on to orange, yellow, green and blue. When the clear red appears, the thing you desire should be pictured in it; and as each new and higher colour is "brought in" by practice, the picture should be made in it. The yellow and green lights are generally considered best for mental pictures of homes, cars, stylish clothes, pleasant surroundings and all other purely physical things. If you will press on to the blue light and then pause in contemplation, you may get inspiration in literature, poetry, art, music and the like. In whatever light the picture may be made, you should continue to look at it, and go to sleep hearing the ticking of the clock say: "I have made it and it's mine - I have made it and it's mine."

The different colours of light that you may see and use may be real or only imaginary - no one really knows. It is interesting to note that the colours of light may appear in the order of their visibility in the spectrum, beginning with the long red rays and passing upward through the shorter rays. Whether the light is real or not is of no practical importance. It serves as a vehicle for conveying an isolated idea to the Subconscious Mind, which accepts the picture and goes about the work of materialising it - not in any strange or miraculous way, but in a natural, orderly and matter-of-course way. You just have to think and say the right things necessary to make the picture grow into a physical reality.  

In this Course I have brought you to a realisation of your possibilities. I have told you how to overcome your handicaps. I have put the psychological weapons of success in your hands. I have pointed the way to an increased income - a way that cannot lead you astray. If you have hurried through it, go back and do the things that have been described, applying one Part of the Course at a time.  

So here we come to the end of our journey. Before you stands the Gate of Self-Knowledge which opens into the Realm of Realization. In the course of these Lessons, you have been given the key to that Gate. I realise, of course, that you could not have accomplished very much during the time you have been learning, but such achievements as you have made demonstrate the soundness of the science you have been studying.  

Now make yourself well, successful and happy. Make a schedule of what you wish to do during the next two years, and apply the teachings of this Course of Lessons for the achievement of these objectives. Such a schedule is wonderfully helpful, and if you are faithful and persistent, your schedule will be carried out in full.