BY AND LARGE,

THERE IS NO SUCH THING

AS SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.

IN THE LONG RUN

YOU GET EXACTLY

THAT FOR WHICH YOU PAY,

WHETHER YOU ARE BUYING

AN AUTOMOBILE

OR A LOAF OF BREAD.
 A DEFINITE CHIEF AIM 137

COMMENTARY

To recap, the Master Mind is a mental state that is developed through the harmo-
nious cooperation of two or more people who ally themselves for the purpose of
accomplishing any given task. The Master Mind harnesses the dedicated effort of
a group of people, pools their resources, both tangible and intangible, and creates
a new whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
A Master Mind operates (or should operate) among the members of the
board of directors for huge international corporations. It operates among a team of
engineers designing a new car. It operates in the production of a movie, the conduct
of a political campaign, or the launch of a new advertising strategy. A Master Mind
occurs when a church begins a fundraising program for a new building, when a
group of neighbors organizes to increase the safety of their community, and when
a couple commits to a lifetime of marriage.
A Master Mind is not simply teamwork. People can work together on a team
simply because they like the leader, or because they are paid to. But in a Master
Mind alliance each member must be passionately committed to the same goals.

Let me lay before you a brief outline of what this lesson is and what it
is intended to do for you.
Having prepared myself for the practice of law, I will offer this
introduction as a statement of my case. And the evidence with which to
back up my case will be presented in the seventeen lessons of which
the course is comprised.
The facts out of which this course has been prepared have been
gathered through more than twenty-five years of business and profes-
sional experience, and my only explanation of the rather free use of the
personal pronoun throughout the course is that I am writing from first-
band experience.
Before this course on the Law of Success was published, the manu-
scripts were submitted to two prominent universities with the request
they be read by competent professors-with the object of eliminating
138 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-MASTERY

or correcting any statements that appeared to be unsound, from an

economic viewpoint.
This request was complied with and the manuscripts were carefully
examined, with the result that not a single change was made, with the
exception of one or two slight changes in wording.
One of the professors who examined the manuscripts expressed
himself, in part, as follows: "It is a tragedy that every boy and girl who
enters high school is not efficiently drilled on the seventeen major parts
of your course in the Law of Success. It is regrettable that the great
university with which I am connected, and every other university, does
not include your course as a part of its curriculum:'
Inasmuch as this course is intended as a map or blueprint that will
guide you in the attainment of that coveted goal called success, may it
not be well here to define success?
Success is the development oj the power with which to get whatever one
wants in life without interfering with the rights oj others.
I lay particular stress on the word power because it is inseparably
related to success. We are living in a world and during an age of intense
competition, and the law of the survival of the fittest is everywhere in
evidence. Because of this, all who would enjoy enduring success must go
about its attainment through the use of power.
And what is power?
Power is organized energy or effort. This course is appropriately called
the Law of Success because it teaches how one may organize facts and
knowledge} and the faculties of one's mind, into a unit of power.
The course brings you a definite promise: Through its mastery and
application you can get whatever you want, with but two qualifying
words-"within reason."
This qualification takes into consideration your education, your
wisdom or your lack of it, your physical endurance, your temperament,
and all of the other qualities mentioned in the seventeen lessons of this
course as being the factors most essential in the attainment of success.
 A DEFINITE CHIEF AIM 139

Without a single exception, those who have attained unusual suc-

cess have done so, either consciously or unconsciously, through the aid
of all or a portion of the seventeen major factors of which this course
is compiled. If you doubt this statement, then master these seventeen
lessons so you can go about the analysis with reasonable accuracy and
analyze such men as Carnegie, Rockefeller, Hill, Harriman, Ford, and
others of this type who have accumulated great fortunes of material
wealth, and you will see that they understood and applied the principle
of organized if.fort.

COMMENTARY

Anyone who has ever participated in a "Quality Circle" at work knows how business
employs the Master Mind. The assembly teams that have replaced assembly lines
at the most modem and efficient factories reflect the same use of the Master Mind.
Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Fireside),
speaks of the Master Mind when he writes of the "interdependent person. "
'~s an interdependent person . .. " he says, "I have access to the vast resources
and potential of other human beings. "
Dennis Connor, the two-time winner of sailing's America's Cup, has a philos-
ophy of teamwork that is a perfect expression of the Master Mind, emphasizing the
power of commitment and dedication to a task. Read his book The Art of Winning
(St. Martin's Press) for a vivid explanation of how Connor used the Master Mind to
create a winning team.
From restaurant kitchens to football teams, from factories to scientific labora-
tories, the Master Mind harnesses the potential power of a group of minds focused
on a goal. Can you afford to ignore this valuable resource in your quest for success?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY SUCCESS?

Nearly twenty years ago I interviewed Mr. Carnegie for the purpose of
writing a story about him. During the interview I asked him to what he
attributed his success. With a merry little twinkle in his eyes he said:
140 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-MASTERY

"Young man, before 1 answer your question will you please define
your term ,success.'')''
After waiting until he saw that 1 was somewhat embarrassed by
this request, he continued: "By success you make reference to my
money, do you not?" 1 assured him that money was the term by which
most people measured success, and he then said: "Oh, well, if you
wish to know how 1 got my money-if that is what you call success
- I will answer your question by saying that we have a Master Mind
here in our business, and that mind is made up of more than a score
of men who constitute my personal staff of superintendents and man-
agers and accountants and chemists and other necessary types. No one
person in this group is the Master Mind of which 1 speak, but the
sum total of all the minds in the group, coordinated, organized, and
directed to a difinite end in a spirit of harmonious Cooperation, is the
power that got my money for me. No two minds in the group are
exactly alike, but each man in the group does the thing that he is
supposed to do and he does it better than any other person in the
world could do ie'
Then and there, the seed out of which this course has since been
developed was sown in my mind. But that seed did not take root or
germinate until later. This interview marked the beginning of years
of research which led, finally, to the discovery of the principle of psy-
chology described in the introductory lesson as the Master Mind.
1 heard all that Mr. Carnegie had said, but it took the knowledge
gained from many years of subsequent contact with the business
world to enable me to assimilate what he said and to dearly grasp and
understand the principle behind it-which was nothing more nor less
than the principle of organized iffort upon which this course on the Law
of Success is founded.
Carnegie's group of men constituted a Master Mind and that mind
was so well-organized, so well-coordinated, so powerful, that it could
have accumulated millions of dollars for Mr. Carnegie in practically any
sort of endeavor of a commercial or industrial nature. The steel business