People who haven't succeeded to the full ex- tent of their capacities
always have an excuse. Like any law-breaker (and they are breaking the Law of Success)
they have figured out what they believe to be an iron-clad alibi for not being
more successful.
They have a handicap-real or imagined- which is holding them back.
And, of course it isn't their own fault. (It never is!)
This is not to say that people don't have real handicaps.
Certainly they do! Everybody has handicaps- only some handicaps require more
effort and will-power to overcome than others.
Nor are imagined handicaps any less real than those which are
entirely physical. A pain is a pain and it hurts just as much whether it
results from a physical injury or a mental defense mechanism. A headache is just
as pain- ful if it is a subconscious alibi for avoiding a disagreeable task as if
it is the result of eye-strain. Either way it hurts just as much.
And a headache is a mild example. People actually go blind, become
partial or entire invalids, suffer every conceivable disability, because their subconscious
minds are using these physical means to give them an alibi for not doing what
they should do, for not living up to the expectations of others.
Sometimes these mentally or emotionally caused pains
or illnesses are a means of self-persecution for some real or imagined
sense of guilt submerged deep in their subconscious-so deep that the sufferers
often do not realize the cause and so blame something else. At least half of
all illnesses have some mental cause.
Real or imagined, physical, mental or financial -handicaps are something
everybody has and it isn't the purpose of this book to underrate them.
In fact, it is the purpose of this book to tell you how to
overcome any handicap you may have! More than that, this book will tell you how
to use your handicap as a springboard to success!
Starting right now this book is going to tell you how poor boys
became multimillionaires, how cripples be- came world champions, how weaklings
became the strongest men in the world, how a deaf man composed some of the
world's greatest symphonies, how "old men" past retirement age
amassed huge fortunes!
Well ... what's YOUR excuse? So YOU'VE got a handicap that's
holding you back? Congratulations! You can use it to be a lot more successful
than if you didn't have a handicap at all!
Of course you can't be a track star if you have no legs. But you
can be a champion athlete even if, in the beginning, your legs are weak-even if your legs have
been crippled by accident or disease. And that applies to all kinds of
handicaps! The record books are filled with the names of champions who overcame
supposedly insurmountable handicaps!
A HANDICAP CAN BE YOUR GREATEST ASSET. Many handicapped people are
so determined to overcome their handicaps that they over-compensate for them
and thus accomplish far more than normal men and women!
Annette Kellerman was lame and sickly-yet she became the World
Diving Champion and was judged one of the world's most perfectly formed women!
Sandow started life as a sickly weakling. He exercised until he
developed one of the most perfect bodies in history and became the strongest
man of his time!
Some years later, George Jowett, lame and weak until he was eleven
years old, built such a perfectly muscled body that, in just ten years, he
became the world's strongest man! If you are physically handicapped you can do one
of two things: (1) you can feel sorry for yourself and expect others to feel sorry
for you, or (2) you can over- come your handicap by will-power and mind-power (which
are described in this book) and if you are willing to pay the price in vigorous
exercise, systematic training 24 and hard work, yop. even can become a champion
as so many other handicapped people have.
But suppose you are not physically handicapped. Suppose your handicap
is that you don't have much school education and you are very poor.
Let's have a look at some of such poor people:
Let's start with poor Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie, poor?
Why he was the great steel tycoon- who made so many millions he couldn't give them
away fast enough, even though he endowed free public libraries in cities all over
this nation! Well, Andrew Carnegie was so poor he had to start work at $4.00 a
month!
John D. Rockefeller, who later became one of the richest men in
the world, started out much more highly paid than Carnegie. Rockefeller made $6.00
a week!
He also was more highly paid than Henry Ford who started at $2.50
a week!
Then there was Thomas Edison who started as a newsboy on trains and
became the world's greatest inventor by conducting more experiments that failed
(yes, failed!) than anybody else in the world! Of course, every time he failed,
he found out what wouldn't work until finally all that was left was what would
work! That's an easy way to achieve greatness-just fail your way to success! (A
later chapter will tell you how YOU can fail your way to success!)
And, another failure: Babe Ruth struck out more times than any
baseball player in the Major Leagues -1,330 strike-outs! He also hit more home runs-714.
You'll never become a batting champion if you're afraid to take your
bat off your shoulder!
But back to the poor folks: A man named D. A. Thomas was born
poor, in a tiny Welsh village. Not only was he poor, but he was a very delicate
boy. So, naturally, as all delicate boys should (and many of them do) he trained
himself to be a strong athlete. He became a good walker, swimmer and cyclist.
He was a good boxer, too, the middle-weight champion of Cambridge, in spite of his
bad eye-sight. He also trained himself well in business by building more than thirty
companies and becoming a multimillionaire!
There was another delicate boy who had so little schooling that he
had to be taught by his mother. He also read books, lots of good books. And, he
liked to experiment-which resulted in his inventing the steam engine that
changed the industrial world I His name? James Watt.
Of course you've heard of the worthless farm boy whose father died
before he was born and his mother had to rear him on a total income of $400 a
year. You will remember him as Sir Isaac Newton, discoverer of the Law of
Gravity.
George F. Johnson was poor, too. He earned $20 a week working in a
small shoe factory-which went bankrupt. The principal creditor was a man named
Endicott. Admitting that he had no money, Johnson gave Endicott his
personal note for $150,000 for half interest in the bankrupt factory. It became
the Endicott-Johnson Company and grew to be the largest manufacturer of shoes
in its time.
A good many years ago, there was a frail, lame little chap named
Elias Howe. He was so poor that he and 26 his family were starved most of the
time. He invented the sewing machine but nobody would buy it. His garret work-
shop burned down. His wife died. He still kept on trying.
Finally his sewing machine began to sell. Elias Howe be- came a
millionaire in twelve years, because, in spite of every discouragement, he kept
on trying!
Michael Faraday was born over a livery stable, the son of a poor
blacksmith. Not a promising start for the founder of electrical science and one
of the foremost scientists of his day!
Joseph Fels was born in a tiny cottage in Virginia. His parents
were poor. His education was poorer. He started his business career as a soap salesman.
By great personal sacrifices and utmost thrift he saved $4,000 with which he
bought a small soap factory. It grew into a large soap factory and made him
millions.
Alice Foote MacDougall served coffee and waffles from a little
stand in Grand Central Station in New York. As a matter of fact, she didn't just
serve waffles, she gave them away with her coffee-and built a $5,000,000 restaurant
business!
King Camp Gillette was born in a small town in Wisconsin. When he
was seventeen his father lost every- thing by fire, so young Gillette had to
make his own way. How? Ever heard of a safety razor?
A young man named Stewart came to New York with $1.50 in his
pocket. The only way he could get more capital was to earn it. And earn it he
did! He started what became the John Wanamaker Store, one of the great- est
department stores of its time!
Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, both great presidents of the United
States, started life in the poorest and humblest of homes with little education
and no advantages.
Ulysses S. Grant at first failed as a business man. Finally, at
39, he was chopping cordwood for a bare living. Nine years later he was President
of the United States!
And so we can go back through history and learn one of Life's
greatest lessons: Nobody is holding you back but YOU!
A German named Elbert started out as a sad- dle maker and became
the first President of Germany after World War 1.
Mustapha Kemal was an unknown officer in the Turkish army and
became Ruler of Turkey!
Reza Khan started as an ordinary trooper in the Persian Army and
became the fabulously wealthy and powerful Shah of Persia.
Julius Caesar was epileptic, but he conquered the then-known
world!
Demosthenes stuttered-so he filled his mouth with pebbles and
shouted over the roar of the waves until he became the greatest orator in all
of ancient Greece.
Darwin was neurasthenic. His nerves were so shattered that even
writing a letter on a subject that excited him made it impossible for him to
sleep that night! Yet he found within himself the enormous energy and vitality
re- quired for the vast scientific research and exacting writing which gave the
world: The Origin of the Species.
Do you think "old age" is a handicap? I put "old
age" in quotation marks because there is considerable disagreement among scientists
and writers concerning when this alleged period of increasing disability is sup-
posed to begin. There now seems to be a growing conviction that we shall learn
to live to be at least 150, with quite adequate mental and physical capacities.
In the meantime, it might be interesting to note a few items of accomplishment
by men of considerable "age" according to present actuarial tables.
After World War I, there was a conference in France to draw up the
Treaty of Versailles. It was attended by the world's most important and
powerful men. The one man most powerful and dynamic in the entire group was Clemenceau,
the "Tiger of France." He was seventy-five years old.
Andrew Mellon, one of the nation's greatest financiers, retained vigor,
endurance and extraordinary energy throughout his eighty-two years of
outstanding accomplishments.
Vanderbilt planned and constructed most of his railroads when he
was over seventy. He made most of his millions at an age after lazier men have
retired!
When he was seventy-five, Walter Damrosch wrote and personally
conducted one of the finest operas of our age.
Kant wrote some of his greatest philosophical works after he was
seventy!
Monet, me great French artist, was still painting his
magnificent pictures when he was eighty-six!
Von Humbolt began work on his famous "Kosmos" when
he was seventy-six and completed it at ninety!
Goethe wrote the second part of Faust when he was eighty years
"old."
Also at eighty, Victor Hugo produced Torque- mada. Should "mandatory
retirement" be based on age?
Titian painted his incomparable "Battle of Lepanto" when
he was ninety-eight!
So much for "old age"! But suppose you are really
handicapped?
Beethoven, composer of immortal symphonies, was deaf!
Milton wrote Paradise Lost when he was blind!
Audubon rose from poverty and disgrace to lasting distinction through
his contribution to our knowledge of bird life.
Alexander Pope was so crippled he could hardly move yet he was a
giant of English literature.
Joan of Arc, an illiterate and penniless peasant girl, became the
heroine of France in that nation's crisis.
Theodore Roosevelt was sickly and weak as a young man, yet by
great will power and strenuous exercise he gained such strength and vigor that
he rode at the head of the rugged Rough Riders up San Juan Hill and later became
President of the United States!
Franklin D. Roosevelt also became President, even though he was severely
crippled by infantile paralysis!
John Bunyan, in a prison cell, wrote a book that will live forever
as an epic of English literature: Pilgrim's Progress.
Robert Louis Stephenson never for one hour 30 was free from pain and
a hacking cough, suffered from fever and tuberculosis-yet gave to generations
yet unborn the adventures of Treasure Island, the genial philosophy of Travels
With A Donkey, and countless hours of pleasure and inspiration from his
versatile pen.
It is clearly evident, from the experiences of courageous men and
women in all walks of life, that the so-called "handicaps" of lameness, sickness,
poverty, misfortune, lack of schooling, and “old age" can be overcome by
will-power and mind-power and success methods which are described later in this blog.
If you. are “handicapped," you can use what psychologists call
over-compensation to lead to even greater accomplishments and success than
normally would be achieved!
To put it simply: SUCCESS IS AVAILABLE TO EVERYBODY!
This blog-this SUCCESS COURSE-tells you how. It teaches you all of
the success methods you ever will need to GET WHATEVER YOU WANT.
The next chapter gives you some keys which you can use to open the
doorways to the Treasure Room of Success!
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