by Napoleon Hill
Available in 122 free installments
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When he responded to this command, he employed the secret of getting things done. And when he did, he went into action. This happened in 1945. It was then that he organized the Christophers ? an organization most unusual.
It has no chapters, no committees, no meetings, no dues. It doesn't even have a membership in the usual sense of the word. It simply consists of people ? no one can say how many ? dedicated to an ideal. The Christophers operate on the concept that it is better for people to "do something and pay nothing" than to "pay dues and do nothing."
What is the ideal to which each is dedicated?
Each Christopher is dedicated to carry his religion with him wherever he goes throughout the day ? into the dust and heat of the market place, into the highways and byways, into the home. And thus he brings the major truths of his faith to others.
The thrilling story is told by the Rev. James Keller in You Can Change the World. It came about because he conceived and believed in an ideal. But he did little or nothing about it until he responded to the secret of getting things done.
You get the feel of this secret from the statement of E. E. Bauermeister, supervisor of education and correctional counselor at California Institution for Men, Chino, California, who told the authors:
"I always tell the men in our self-adjustment class that too often what we read and profess becomes a part of our libraries and our vocabularies, instead of becoming a part of our lives."
Remember the Biblical statement: For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now how can you train yourself to get into action immediately when it is desirable?
And then we told Mr. Bauermeister how the good things we read and profess can become a part of our lives. We gave him the self-starter for getting things done.
How do you make the secret of getting things done a part of your life? By habit. And you develop habit through repetition. "Sow an action and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny," said the great psychologist and philosopher William James. He was saying that you are what your habits make you. And you can choose your
habits. You can develop any habit you wish when you use the self-starter.
Now what is the secret of getting things done and what is the self-starter that forces you to use this great secret?
The secret of getting things done is to act The self-starter is the self-motivator DO IT NOW!
As long as you live, never say to yourself, "DO IT NOW!" unless you follow through with desirable action. Whenever action is desirable and the symbol DO IT NOW! flashes from your subconscious mind to your conscious mind, immediately act.
Make it a practice to respond to me self-starter DO IT NOW! in little things. You will quickly develop the habit of a reflex response so powerful that in times of emergency or when opportunity presents itself, you will act. Say you have a phone call that you should make but you have a tendency to procrastinate. And you have put off making that phone call. When the self-starter DO IT NOW! flashes from your subconscious to your conscious mind: Act. Make that phone call immediately.
Or suppose, for example, that you set your alarm clock for 6:00 A.M. Yet when the alarm goes off, you feel sleepy, get up, turn off the alarm, and go back to bed. You will have a tendency to develop a habit to do the same thing in the future. But if your subconscious mind flashes to the conscious DO IT NOW! then come what may ? DO IT NOW! Stay up! Why? You want to develop the habit of responding to the self-starter DO IT NOW!
In Chapter Thirteen you will read how one of the authors bought a company with one million six hundred thousand dollars in net liquid assets with the seller's own money. This became a reality
because at the proper time the buyer responded to the self-starter DO IT NOW!
Now H. G. Wells learned the secret of getting things done. And H. G. Wells was a prolific writer because he did. He tried never to let a good idea slip away from him. While an idea was fresh, he immediately wrote down the thought that occurred to him. This would sometimes happen in the middle of the night. No matter. Wells would switch on the light, reach for the pencil and paper that were always beside his bed and scribble away. And then he would drop off to sleep again.
Ideas that might have been forgotten were recalled when he refreshed his memory by looking at the flashes of inspiration that had been written down immediately when they occurred. This habit of Wells' was as natural and effortless to him as smiling is to you when a happy thought occurs.
