In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; he must form a clear mental picture of the things he wants, and hold this picture in his thoughts with the fixed PURPOSE to get what he wants, and the unwavering FAITH that he does get what he wants, closing his mind to all that may tend to shake his purpose, dim his vision, or quench his faith.
That he may receive what he wants when it comes, man must act NOW upon the people and things in his present environment.
CHAPTER XII.
Efficient Action.
You must use your thought as directed in previous chapters, and begin to do what you can do where you are; and you must do ALL that you can do where you are.
You can advance only by being larger than your present place; and no man is larger than his present place who leaves undone any of the work pertaining to that place.
The world is advanced only by those who more than fill their present places.
If no man quite filled his present place, you can see that there must be a going backward in everything. Those who do not quite fill their present places are a dead weight upon society, government, commerce, and industry; they must be carried along by others at a great expense. The progress of the world is retarded only by those who do not fill the places they are holding; they belong to a former age and a lower stage or plane of life, and their tendency is toward degeneration. No society could advance if every man was smaller than his place; social evolution is guided by the law of physical and mental evolution. In the animal world, evolution is caused by excess of life.
When an organism has more life than can be expressed in the functions of its own plane, it develops the organs of a higher plane, and a new species is originated.