# Wallace D. Wattles Ultimate Collection — Chapter-105: Lesson 9 Special Application - **Source**: /library/Wallace D. Wattles Ultimate Collection/source-file.pdf - **PDF pages**: 450–455 - **Pages without text**: none - **Note**: Work: *The Personal Power Course*, section 9 of 10. --- Lesson 9 Special Application Table of Contents As a type of a large class of avocations, let us take the pursuit of literature, and consider how the seeker after success should apply the principles given in the preceding instructions. And going back to the initial lesson, we find that our first requisite was that the seeker must know what he wants. Make up your mind at the outset whether you wish to excel as a writer of fiction, drama, descriptive articles, or essays; write what you want to write, and proceed along the lines of what you deem your strongest faculties, holding yourself ready to change your ultimate object if need be, as your view broadens. Then if you are dependent on your work for bread, and MUST sell what you write, do not try to sell that for which a market must be created. Do not begin by trying to "elevate" literature; wait until you get a place on which to stand before proceeding to lift the world. If you can strike a new idea, which fills some present want, well and good; but you will find it hard to get a living in literature by selling people something which they do not want. Do not try to force a new policy upon the editor; if he edits a periodical which contains stories of a light and it seems to you, trashy type, do not send him something on an altogether different line, with a view to improving his publication. He knows what he wants; and if he does not, it is not for you to tell him. If you are going to write for your bread, or for present rewards in the way of wealth and popularity, you will have to write for the market. Study the market in the particular line in which you propose to write; select what seems to you to be the highest type of excellence in the productions given through that market, and set to work knowing that you can do far better than the type you have selected. There is no writer living who is writing the best that can be written; and there never was a writer in the past who did so. Nothing so great has ever been produced but that something greater still is possible; and the power which can produce that greater something is within you. If you know this, and FEEL it fully when you write, you will write in a successful frame of mind, and will produce good work. To attain the best results in any form of mental work, it is vitally important that you should work in a successful frame of mind. You cannot fully apply your mind when you are disturbed, or in doubt, or anxious; even though you may "pull together" and secure a fair control over the objective faculties at such a time, you lose practically all the great power of the subconscious. The subconscious acts perfectly only when you are poised, serene, and confident; you can never do really good mental work while you are in the electrical state of mind. When you sit down to write, lay aside all other thoughts but those pertaining to your work. Do not think of the money you are going to get for it, nor of your need for the money. Do not think of your necessities. Do not work against time, holding the idea that a certain number of words must be turned out every day. Do not work when you are tired mentally. Learn to prepare yourself for your work by a mental exercise which will give you poise. Think over the things you have learned in these lessons until you KNOW that you can do the best work; and until you not only KNOW that you can, but FEEL that you can. When you KNOW that you can, and FEEL that you can, you are ready in both the subconscious and the objective mind to do successful work. When you are only intellectually CONVINCED that you can, but do not FEEL that you can, you do not get the power and inspiration of the subconscious; you may show talent, but you will not show genius. Having gotten into the desired state of mind, the next thing is to be sure that you do not slip back into the electrical state again. Take your time in selecting a subject or theme; get something good; something that is needed; something that will be successful. Better spend a whole day, or a week finding a successful theme for a story or essay than to spend a fortnight or a month writing an unsuccessful one. Be sure that you have a successful theme, and KNOW that you can handle it better than it was ever handled. Begin your work in this mental attitude, and be sure that every sentence you write is a successful sentence; and that every word is a successful word. As we have shown in a previous lesson, if every part of your work is a success in itself, the total cannot be a failure. When you have written a page, if you are not satisfied with it, do not hesitate to destroy it, and begin again. If your work is not quite satisfactory, it is because you have not quite brought all your subconscious power into harmonious action with your objective faculties; or because your objective faculties have not yet had training enough to fully express the subconscious power. You call your subconscious into action by feeling that you CAN do perfect work, and you train your objective talent by TRYING to do perfect work. You will ultimately get the two working together, and when you do, your work will show not only the power of genius but the finish of talent. Keep in the magnetic frame of mind, and make each part of your work a success in itself. When you have learned to write, you have yet to learn how to market your work. If you prepare a piece of work of any magnitude, as a serial, it is well to submit a scenario to several different editors asking if they would be in the market for anything of the kind; by doing this you will save yourself much time and disappointment. By a little experimenting in this way, you will find the best places to send the kind of "stuff" you produce. After you have learned where to send what you write, and what to send to each particular place, you will not find the way to literary success very difficult. It is in this matter of finding a market, by the way, that most mental workers fail to find success. The unsuccessful lawyer, doctor, clergyman, or other brain worker is such because he does not offer his product at the right time, in the right place, or in the right way. There is no really good mental product for which the demand is not infinitely greater than the supply. Know that you ARE capable of doing this very BEST work; and KNOW that there is a really limitless demand for the BEST work. Then study the market until you are prepared to offer your work at the right TIME, and in the right PLACE. Then comes the question of offering it in the right way. Never offer your work or your services with an apology, or in an apologetic manner. If you do not think well of your work, others will not be likely to think well of it; and if you do not ACT as if you thought well of it, others will not be prejudiced in its favor. Think well of your work, and make plain to others that you do think well of it; but avoid the flippant, swaggering know -it-all style which is rather prevalent just now among some of the younger men and women. A really well-developed and brainy person is never flippant. KNOW that you can do, and are doing, the best of work; but do not be conceited. There is nothing in you which is not in somebody else. There is, and always will be, a ready market for really CONSTRUCTIVE thought, in all the professions. If you can say something that will help people to solve their problems, to get money, to attain happiness, to find pleasure in life, the world wants your work, and will pay you well for it. The day of the "knocker" is past, and the pessimist has gone with him; the successor, the much- raker, is passing. The world wants constructive thought and work, but it does not want mere optimistic "jollying." The man who, in the face of our most perplexing problems, merely claps us on the back and shouts "cheer up" is a bore; he is passing rapidly from the literary and professional field; there is no longer any demand for his cheerful inanities. People are no longer satisfied by being told to smile; they demand to be told WHY they should smile. The writer, lawyer, clergyman or physician whose thought is really CONSTRUCTIVE will certainly succeed. This applies as well in mercantile pursuits. The average man is always looking for something which will be constructive - which will "build him up" in body, mind, or fortune. If, through his dealings with you, he feels that he is being built up, he will seek you with the utmost eagerness; but if he feels that you are tearing him down, he will keep away. Study to make men feel that you can and will build them up; unite them to you by a feeling of common interest. The most real and permanent success in business is attained by binding large numbers of people to you by feelings of friendliness and common interest. And here again you may take advantage of the fact that throughout nature, action and reaction are equal. It is a fact that, because of this great law, other people come to feel toward you as you feel toward them. If you can cultivate a live human interest in people, and feel a sincere desire to do them good in every transaction, it will be one of the best investments you have ever made. Not withstanding the profound logic of the materialistic philosophers, men respond more readily to love than to self-interest; they will go farther, and do more for love than for self-interest. It is a splendid thing when every one of your customers feels bound to you by a tie of kindly affection, and it is a condition that you can bring about. Cultivate a kindly and affectionate feeling toward people; it comes easily; and you will be surprised to find how quickly the reaction takes place in their minds, sending the same feeling from them to you. Moreover, the essential nature of the Intelligence is such that It must hold only love and good will to all; and It will not respond to your affirmations unless your soul is filled with good will. The movement of evolution is toward peace on earth good will among men; and the man whose mind is in closest harmony with his spirit will receive most from the Universal. As you eliminate fear from your mind, you will find that love and good will take its place. It is fear which makes men dishonest, cruel, and unkind; it is fear which makes them jealous and untrustworthy. It is natural for men to love, and it is unnatural for them to be cruel, selfish, or unkind; when they come into their natural state and lose fear, love comes in. Fear is an error, growing from a misunderstanding or a partial understanding of the universe; and when this error is eliminated a host of others go with it. Make the affirmations as directed in the first, and other lessons, until you lose fear, and then give full sway to love and goodwill. Cultivate a habit of taking real interest in the problems of the people you meet in business; be interested in them just because they are people. KNOW that you can help them, and dwell upon this knowledge until you have overcome the old habitual way of thought, and FEEL that you want to help them. Think CONSTRUCTIVELY about everybody; see them as beautiful, growing, and developing souls. See the ADVANCING, GROWING side of every person, and enter into fuller sympathy with that side; and by doing so you will cause the best to come uppermost in all. By taking this attitude of mind, you will be able to put a kindly personal interest into every transaction, great or small. Whether you sell your customer a mine or a railroad, or a spool of thread, you will have made him feel that you honestly desire his good; and his heart will instantly respond. "That which cometh from the light, reacheth to the light," said old George Fox; and he was right. If you have a living interest in the welfare of every one with whom you come into business relations, the reaction will build you a successful business, provided that you conform to the law in other particulars, as you were taught how to do in the forth and fifth lesson. Remember, you cannot attain success merely by being a "good fellow"; you must conform to the laws of wealth; while, on the other hand, you cannot attain any success worth having unless you do learn to make yourself one in heart with your kind. Recognize the great fact that every human being is an advancing soul, like yourself; and always think of every man as advancing. If you do this, you will come to see the whole world as advancing; you will hold only constructive thoughts concerning it, and you will hold only constructive thoughts concerning your own business. When you hold only constructive thoughts concerning your own business, and act with the full power and judgment of the subconscious mind, your actions will be constructive; you will make no mistakes, and you will certainly get what you want.