How to Make Money

Front matter

HOW TO MAKE

MONEY

THREE LECTURES ON “THE LAWS OF FINANCIAL SUCCESS”

Introduction

PURPOSE OF THE LESSONS

The purpose of these lessons is to raise the mental and spiritual vibrations of the student—to inspire hope, faith, courage—to awaken larger thought within the mind, inspire greater plans and purposes and awaken the dormant energy in the life—to fire the enthusiasm and call into active service hidden talent which the student, possibly, does not dream at his present stage of unfoldment, he possesses.

In short our purpose is to awaken men from mental slumber, show the unlimited resources in human nature, the unseen yet open doors to mental wealth first, then as a natural sequence to wealth in material conditions, and thus enlarge and ennoble the life as well as add to its material expressions.

The purpose of the true teacher—who is ever the true physician as well—must always be the “more abundant life” of which the Nazarene spoke and taught. To disclose that life, abounding life, in all its fullness and beauty and point out the laws by which it is gained, with wealth as a natural sequence, is the purpose of the three lessons on which we are entering.

A PROPHECY OF RESULTS FROM THESE LESSONS

Prophecies based on observation and experience, and knowledge of natural law, are exceedingly instructive and valuable. We predict most confidently that every student of these lessons will have after reading them—and especially after their re-reading and study—a larger store of information on the subject of Success in Life, brighter hopes, more enthusiasm, more “vim,” “grit” and “gumption” in business, and will attack his life work with such enlarged wisdom and such intense energy that hereafter his life will become in every way more successful and bring him into larger freedom, greater happiness and power and ampler resources financially.

In short, no one can apply the teachings of these lessons without his life becoming larger, nobler and purer, and more enjoyable in the possession of mental and material wealth. And the life that receives and applies these teachings will be like a fertilizing stream in the desert, making it bud and blossom like the rose.

THE REASONS FOR THIS PROPHECY

With absolute confidence I make this prophecy, because I shall give you not theories, spun from the imagination of the poet or novelist or from some dreamy philosopher in the seclusion of his study, or some penny-a-liner who is paid so much per page for his theories, but the actual results of human experience and a study of nature’s laws and especially of the laws of financial gain. I shall give you “the kernel” of the best teachings of a score of our ablest psychologists and new thought writers in concentrated form. And I shall give the personal testimony of those who have risen from poverty to wealth through discovery of the laws of financial success and their application to the life. The principles here laid down have been tested over and over again in the laboratory of life’s experiences and found correct and practicable.

Moreover I myself have proved them and I illustrate these principles and prove their value in my own life.

Another reason why we most confidently predict success to the students of this course is the fact that the teachings are rational, being in accord with life and human experience, and based on laws that are now known and recognized as governing the accumulation of wealth. These is nothing of mystical charm, no miracle involved, nothing of the “cheap nostrum” order about them. Our method is simply reason amplified and set to work, energy awakened and employed, laws discovered and followed out —with the one inevitable result: enlarged and ennobled character, mental and material wealth.

NO SPECIAL ENDOWMENT REQUIRED FOR MONEY- MAKING

The way to competence, if not wealth, is open to every man of sound body and mind who will study and apply these laws. The fact that great riches belong to the few, and that some men seem to stumble on riches and others seek them in vain for a life time—generally without knowledge of the law or application in the life—has led some to suppose that a special endowment of nature is necessary to enable one to attain wealth. Doubtless a few men without a theoretical knowledge of the law have applied it in their lives, and unquestionably some few men seem to come into wealth by “chance” or “luck,” yet there is really no such thing as chance in a universe of law—and the vast majority of men who have won wealth have either through their own mentality, or by the teachings of others, or by inspiration, come to know the law and apply it in their own lives.

Every man of sound mind and body, we repeat, can become master of conditions in his life—in place of being enslaved, as the multitudes are, by these conditions. There is a pathway from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to fame, from weakness to strength, from the servile and pigmy condition of mind and life, to Kingship in mind and in estate. The door of opportunity is open—or, at least, unlocked.

NATURE PLANS ABUNDANCE FOR ALL

Another introductory consideration worthy our attention is the fact that the evident plan of God as revealed in nature is abundance for all. Poverty is no part of nature’s plan—but the very reverse is true: Nature designed abundance for all. Her provision for man’s wants covers not only his necessities but a superabundance is the law of Nature’s beneficence. The tracing of disease, poverty and suffering to the design of God was, indeed, a part of the Old Theology, which is now practically dead and superceded by the New Theology which traces all of these evils to ignorance and neglect of law.

As children of God we inherit not only the right to life, but to all that makes life worth living. But every life is “cabin’d, cribbed, confined” by poverty. In fact freedom, power, happiness, education, culture, travel, books, art, music, recreation—the things that made life worth the living—are really impossible without wealth.

Not only is our own life robbed of its full and happy expression by poverty, but man’s service of his fellowmen is limited on every hand by poverty. Men who possess in their own mentality great truths that would instruct and inspire the multitude, or great plans for reforming our deplorable social and economic system, or great purposes of charity toward the needy, or great reforms they would like to see realized find themselves hampered and hindered in all their noble work by “lack of funds.”

The world—sad to state—estimates a man not by his knowledge, or his character, so much as by the size of his bank account. A public lecturer said recently in my hearing—and was applauded in saying it—he respected no man who did not have a good bank account.

Harsh as this may appear, we shall show there is at least a small measure of justice in it by pointing out that Poverty is essentially a Mental Disease, and that from the standpoint of character itself—in this age of golden opportunities—it is no credit to a man to be poor.

OUR DESIRES ARE PROPHECIES AND SHOW THE POSSIBILITY OF WEALTH

All students of nature and of man recognize that the possession of a desire within the soul for any real or supposed good, is a natural prophecy proving there is somewhere in Nature’s realm a source of satisfaction for that desire. If my student, then, believes in a Personal God as the designer of all things, can he possibly conclude that God intended to mock us by desires impossible of fulfillment? If so, as Helen Wilmans aptly declares, these desires implanted within us are simply “promissory notes on a ruined bank.” Again, if these desires for wealth are not true prophecies, man is destined as he emerges from barbarism to civilization, to increasing misery and suffering, since desires multiply and intensify as man advances along the upward path of evolution. All studies, therefore, of nature and the human soul tend to convince us that man’s life should have an abundance of temporal good—in short that man should rule his conditions and not be ruled by them. We go still farther and unhesitatingly assert it is

EVERY MAN’S DUTY TO MAKE ALL THE MONEY HE CAN HONESTLY

At first sight it might seem that inheritors of great wealth—having no need of more money and no love of business or labor—might be excused from the task of money making. Not so, however. Every man who enjoys the advantages of our wonderful civilization, who eats the food some toiler has grown, or wears the garments some toiler has made, who enjoys the protection which is freely granted to all, owes a personal debt to the world. Despite his large bank account and broad acres he is but a refined “pauper” if in some way he does not add to the wealth of the world.

And no man has enough wealth to supply, not only his own need, but to fully meet the claims of a world in sickness, suffering and sorrow, and to plan and prosecute the great living reforms of this age.

A man should demand of himself, of society, of his God, abundance of temporal good. The stream of abundance should flow with increasing volume into his life, and the stream of beneficence should flow with equal freedom out of his heart and life, to supply the higher needs of humanity. “Freely receive; freely give.” The ideal life is the one in which a liberal kingly in- come is assured—and man in the royalty and beneficence of his nature should give like a king.

No life can reach its maximum of enjoyment, power and usefulness without wealth.

IS THERE GREAT DANGER IN ACQUIRING WEALTH?

Undoubtedly—but greater dangers still in the lack of wealth. The one great danger in acquiring money and in possessing it, is the danger of becoming a slave to gold. This is one of the vilest forms of slavery and, perhaps, no other form of idolatry is quite so benumbing to all the higher and diviner qualities of manhood as avarice. The miser is of all characters most despised and illustrates the truth of the old proverb “Money is a good servant but a hard master.” No other type of character exhibits such unreasoning folly and seems so fully to merit the rebuke: “Thou Fool.” The one safeguard in the acquisition of wealth is the constant, unremitting cultivation of the human sympathies and the exercise of benevolence. Without this, the acquisition of money is generally attended by a freezing up of the moral nature and a growing love for money for purely selfish purposes, or for money’s sake, ending in avarice and the wretched condition of the miser. It is quite easy to see how the rigid economy many feel called upon to exercise in rising from poverty to wealth, and the constant mental habit of reaching out in desire and act for material gain, would in the lapse of years work a transformation of character, so that men who set out in life with an ambition to acquire a fortune for the uplift of humanity, find with the gaining of the fortune they have lost all benevolent desire. This is an unspeakable calamity to multitudes of men who become enslaved not by money, but by the love of money, and miss the grandest opportunity of a life dowered with the possession of money—the privilege of using wealth to enrich themselves and their fellows with that increasing knowledge, happiness and virtue, that constitute the eternal riches of the soul.

Better a thousandfold for a man that he live and die under the disadvantages and limitations and hardships of poverty and retain the spirit of brotherhood and humanity in his heart, than to acquire the wealth of Croesus and shrink his soul up to the littleness, meanness and wretchedness of a miser.

A very good test of our own soul attitude toward money, a very fair indication of how we would use great wealth if it came to us, may be had in the serious answer of the question: How are we using the mea- sure of wealth which is ours today? How much have we contributed to purely benevolent objects this past year?

A man should ever recognize his own kingship and demand a liberal income from the world, and it is his business to see to it that all obstacles in himself and his environment are removed which would hinder a generous flow of Nature’s great stream of Opulence toward himself. And then he should live like a king, and be as generous as a king, with his fellowmen.

WE SEEK TO INTENSIFY YOUR DESIRES FOR WEALTH

In place of encouraging contentment with Poverty, we preach the Gospel of Discontent. We would whet your desires for wealth and intensify your love—not of money—but of the good things in life which money represents. It is a misinterpretation of life and of all true religion to deny either the vast advantages of money on the one hand, or the right and duty of all men to possess and use it in as large a degree as is consistent with honor and justice. The inherent desires of men, the demands of the world today upon us in our complex civilization, the Law of Opulence everywhere seen in Nature, all prove that men ought to conquer conditions and amass wealth.

Lesson 1

LESSON I.

THE MAKING OVER OF ONE’S SELF

Our first lesson is introductory, desiring to give the student the right viewpoint of the subject, to enable him to see clearly the relation between character and achievements in life, and to clear the ground for the practical rules and instructions to follow:

Our first rule then, and one of the most important of all, is this:

MAKE YOURSELF OVER

The student of these lessons will very probably interpose this objection: We expected to get practical instructions in money-making and our teacher is giving us theoretical instruction in the building of character.

And for the very good reason that money-making, money-keeping and right money-using depend on character. Nothing more directly bearing on material interests could be given a student than the up-building of a strong, progressive, courageous and determined character. All real success in life in all departments of human endeavor depends on that. Men conquer material conditions by first conquering themselves. Men become rich in worldly goods by becoming rich in intellectual power, in faith, hope, courage, and in the creative powers of the mind. The outward life is a reflex of the inward life—and no man can become master of the outward and physical realms who does not master the kingdom within. No one is prepared to make wealth, conserve wealth, or rightly use wealth, who is in mental poverty, moral weakness or of a cowardly spirit.

The Great Master of Nazareth knew the order in which happiness, harmony, health and riches—in fact all outward good—come into the life, and expressed it when he said: “Seek first the Kingdom that is within—and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Multitudes of men want results in their lives without the trouble on their part of furnishing the efficient cause. But results do not come from mere wishing. Harvests do not come without the sweat and toil of the laborer and the sowing of the seed.

All the greatest blessings of life and all our mightiest achievements result from right thinking, right feeling and right willing.

Until a man gets the right conception of the meaning of life, of the unlimited powers of the human soul, until his nature is burning with desire to do and dare and win, until his Will is developed by exercise and he has acquired Courage and indomitable Perseverance, he is poorly equipped for either attaining or rightly using money. It is well worth the student’s attention, therefore, to study the relation between strong character and great achievements.

Most people have to do considerable judicious weeding in the garden of their minds—getting rid of many inherited and traditional ideas and notions of earlier times—freeing the mentality from Fear, Worry, Doubt, and planting therein the seeds of Faith in themselves, in Nature, in the Law of Opulence, Faith in their own Rights, and developing Courage, Hope, Ambition and Patience, until mentally and spiritually they have rebuilt themselves into a nobler type of being.

As man’s present outward condition—whether poverty or wealth, happiness or misery—is largely the result of his past methods of thinking, so will the future outward conditions be the direct outgrowth of his future methods of thinking.

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”—which is but another way of saying that man’s body is the result of his thinking (conscious or unconscious); his speech, manner, gait, his culture conduct, his influence among men, his success or failure—all are the natural sequence of his thoughts.

How, then, you ask, can one make him- self over? Just as a tailor makes over a coat, a carpenter makes over a house, a shipbuilder makes over a ship—by changing the pattern or the design. We build our lives from Ideals as the carpenter builds his house from plans. If we change our ideas, our conceptions of life, its privileges and responsibilities, our thoughts of ourselves, our ideals of character, and persist in holding the new ideas and ideals, we shall develop characters in harmony with them. Whatever we want in our outward life in material expression, we must first build into our mental life, into our Ideals, Purposes and Will.

Events, conditions and seeming results of chance or miracle in our outward life, are all under law and in reality are mostly genuine materializations of forms we have built up in our thought realm.

Life proceeds as a stream from the “within” to the “without,” from the mental and spiritual to the physical and material expressions. We must therefore create wealth in the mind before we realize its possession in the life.

This is not peculiar to the subject of money-making but applies to all life's activities, as we see that the architect first builds his house in his mind before he erects it on the material plane; the engineer con- structs his tunnel mentally before he pierces the mountain or builds his underground railway; the financial magnate builds his plans of commercial conquest or aggression in the silence and secrecy of his own mind before he takes the first step toward their outward realization.

We shall treat this more fully in succeeding pages—sufficient for the student at present to be impressed with the great fact that right ideas and conceptions, right plans and purposes, clear vision of opportunities, a strongly developed power of mental creation, unflinching courage, an adamantine will and a perseverance that never tires, are among the essential requisites in money-making.

Let me assure the student of these pages that much thought, time and effort spent in getting a clear grasp of these truths, and in weeding out erroneous ideas and impressions from the mind, in getting a right viewpoint of this subject, a right concept of one’s own place in nature as Lord and Master, a right view of one’s intimate relation to, and vital connection with, the Great Source of all Wisdom, Strength and Goodness, through which he may draw unlimited supplies in all life’s honest endeavors, is not wasted, but will prove of unspeakable advantage to him in conquering Poverty and acquiring Wealth.

These considerations are not incidental, or accessory, but vital and fundamental to the subject.

The student, therefore, should make a close inspection of his own mental and spiritual equipment for the great struggle he is to enter upon in the conquest of the conditions and limitations of life.

Then he must gain by reflection, study and experience a clear and lofty ideal of the type of character he would reach, the style of man he must become if he would succeed in the race for wealth, in the battle he would fight to rise from the “cabined, cribbed and confined” conditions of poverty to the enjoyment and power of great wealth.

He will doubtless find himself in possession of qualities of mind and traits of character not only useless but positively detrimental to success in life. These he must—no matter how great the effort or long the struggle—eliminate. Then he will find other mental qualities and characteristics essential to success conspicuous by their absence, or by very faint expression in his life. These he must develop, nourish, exercise and call into Strength and Beauty.

So the work of making one’s self over is a three-fold work: a thorough diagnosis of our own mental, moral and spiritual equipment for the battle before us; elimina- tion of undesirable ideas, characteristics, habits, etc.; and the cultivation of the undeveloped germs of mental and spiritual qualities essential to success.

This three-fold work of preparation is as rational and essential to one seeking wealth as the careful study of the mental qualities, the physical endowment and the rigid training of the athlete before a contest—as necessary as the discipline, training and equipment of the soldier in war.

The man who thinks himself qualified without this three-fold mental discipline to enter upon the fierce competitions and tremendous difficulties in his struggle for his share of worldly good, is as truly a fool as the man who, untrained, wages war with the athlete in the arena.

No one but a fool expects the harvest without toil and seed-sowing. Only the fool expects results without adequate cause. Right ideas, views of life, right conceptions of your own powers, right ideals and purposes, the right courage and will and the right hope and spirit, constitute the adequate cause for the result we call success. They are the fruitful seed of the harvest you wish to reap.

The student cannot be too deeply impressed with the necessity of this mental and spiritual preparation. In this making-over process, time, money, effort and zeal are well expended. Every teacher who can give you a fruitful idea, every book that can bring a real inspiration, every exercise of mental gymnastics that can strengthen the will, every ray of light that can give you clearer vision of true ideals, is of priceless value to you.

POVERTY IS A MENTAL DISEASE

Of course there are exceptional cases where from some misfortune or wrong doing of others, Poverty seems forced upon an individual, either by uncontrollable circumstances in his own life, or by the action of others. Yet in the vast majority of cases the Poverty of man’s material condition is the natural and inevitable result of Poverty in himself—in his thought realm of reasoning, emotion and volition. The mental Poverty is mother and father of the Poverty of his material conditions. The outward conditions of a man’s life are a reflex of his thought world. This view of the cause will help the student in his resolve to thoroughly diagnose the condition of his thought realm and to bring his mental machinery into such a state of efficiency that his whole character will assume a nobler type, and with the natural result that his outer conditions shall reflect his improved mentality.

ELIMINATE WRONG IDEAS, IDEALS, MOODS

Among the erroneous notions which it may be necessary to root out of the mind is the thought (traceable to false religious teaching) that the possession of much money is not in harmony with true religion. It is quite true that the love of money is a root of evil, and that many who have great wealth are under great temptations to neglect their spiritual interests. But note this fact that while money loved and worshipped, and money hoarded by miserly avarice, are great evils and a source of great temptation, poverty on the other hand, has its peculiar evils and temptations, and that no position in life is free from possible temptation, while every blessing in life, by abuse, may become a curse. Note also that the evident design of nature is abundance and not poverty—so that while we may say God is the author of Beneficence and Abundance, and nature's law is certainly Opulence—no one can say God is the author of Poverty. The end nature aims at is Abundance for All and if we must find an origin for Poverty we can never trace it to divine design.

The notion that sickness, suffering and poverty are in any way necessarily related to a religious life, is one of the falsest teach- ings ever given out in the name of religion. God is the author of Health, Happiness, Wealth and Wisdom, and sickness, misery, poverty, ignorance, are incidents of our undeveloped condition or results of our own neglect. No life under the blighting influence of poverty can prove the “abundant life,” the full-orbed, symmetrical and beneficent life, which every rational man desires.

The Worry Fiend and his Allies must be routed if you are to secure that peace and inward calm so essential to efficient thinking and working. Psychology today in trumpet tones declares that no one can enjoy health who is a victim of worry, anger, jealousy or fear. Along with these, we should put irresolution, timidity, depression, lack of confidence in one’s self—all of them Negative Emotions, utterly unfitting us for the conflict of life!

These emotions exhaust the life energy and leave a man only fractional strength for the stubborn ordeals of life. People suffer more real exhaustion and loss from the evils they fear—but which never happen—than they do from evils that actually materialize in their lives. At an old man’s funeral it was said of him: he had a multitude of troubles in life, most of which never happened. What an infinite pity that the time and strength which might be utilized in grand achievements for ourselves and the world, are too often wasted in worry, fear or envy—with the one result of weakness and suffering and lost opportunities of usefulness?

Fear has been called truly “the great hob-goblin of the race.” It magnifies our foes and minifies our friends. It is always saying: “There is a lion in the way!” Its cry is the cry of the coward servant of Elisha: “Alas! my Master, what shall we do?” It sees the foes, difficulties and magnifies them into gigantic proportions. “The fearful and the unbelieving” both go to the same doom according to Scripture.

The whole progress of humanity—nationally and individually—is a progress from the dominion of fear to the realm of faith.

Fear has a strange magnetic power—a thought-creative power—of materializing into our outward life the very objects feared! It seems to be a magnet with great force, drawing into the orbit of the life the very object feared by the mind. “The thing that I “feared,” said the sacred writer, “is that which came upon me.” Faith, on the other hand, says with Elisha: “They that are for us are greater than those that be against us.” Faith sees the angelic hosts ready to assist us in time of need. Let the student remember the axiom: “thought takes form in action and being.”

THE WAY TO DRIVE OUT WORRY, FEAR, ETC.

In place of centering our thought upon the Worry, Fears, Doubts and Irresolution, which constitute man’s mental poison, the proper method is to forget that these have controlled us, and put all our mental effort into the cultivation of their antidotes: Peace, Trust, Faith, Resolution, Courage. The expulsive power of a new and contrary idea or affection is recognized by all psychologists, and from the standpoint of mental science we should not allow the mind to dwell upon undesirable qualities or things. Think health, not sickness; success, not failure; courage, not fear; faith, not doubt; the increasing good coming into your life, not the evil.

Especially is it necessary to enlarge and strengthen Faith, which is not a mere belief or assent of the understanding to certain statements—but as Edward E. Beals expresses it: “Faith is the trolley pole which one raises to meet the Great Forces of Life and Nature, and by means of which one receives the inflow of the Power which is behind, and in all things, and is enabled to apply, that Power to the running of his own affairs.” The illustration is most apt and forcible. Faith is the vital bond of connection between the soul of man and its Infinite Source of supply. It is more. It is the great awakener of the latent forces in the soul of man. To the sick it uncaps the fountain of healing waters in the soul and floods the whole spiritual nature with new life and power. To the weak it brings strength; to the timid, courage; to the despairing, hope. Faith opens the soul’s interior vision and discloses the realities of the Spirit Realm—realities that being recognized and patiently waited for, have the strange power of materializing themselves in our outward life conditions.

We must assiduously cultivate Faith in ourselves. No man ever becomes truly successful who is deeply impressed with his own weakness or inferiority. It is the confident, hopeful men who carry with them the thought-vibration: “I can and I will,” who win in life’s battle.

If a man could keep his poor opinion of himself to himself, even then it would cripple him in his life work, but the more surely does it do so because every one’s fear thoughts—however zealously he may seek to hide them in language or conduct—create an atmosphere of doubt, timidity and fear about him that radiates into the minds of all who come in contact with him.

Thoughts and Moods are Catching. No man can keep his thoughts entirely to him- self. The air of negativity—of doubt and irresolution—with which multitudes of men surround themselves finds its way into other minds and becomes a barrier to success at every point.