Week 8 – Persistence & Mastermind

Persistence is the sustained effort necessary to induce faith and the eighth principle of this philosophy.

Its basis is the power of will and its quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel.

When you combine persistence with desire, which is the starting point of all achievement, then you have an irresistible combination.

A man’s vision will gravitate towards him in proportion to how much his mind has been prepared to attract it.

Gradually our habit nature will hand over to our subconscious mind a clear picture of the object of our desire.

Our subconscious mind works automatically while we are awake or asleep. Spasmodic or occasional persistence will be of no value to us. Our possibilities and potentials are attracted to the mind only of those that have developed the habit of persistence and practice it repeatedly every day with consistency.

There is no substitute for it, it cannot be supplanted by any other quality. Those that have cultivated this habit seem to enjoy insurance against failure.

Sometimes it appears there is a hidden guide, a silent but irresistible power that comes to the rescue of those who fight on through adversity.

This hidden guide’s duty is to test man through all sorts of challenges and discouraging experiences. It lets no one enjoy great achievement without first passing the persistence test. Those that pass the test receive the priceless knowledge that every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage.

One thing that is irrefutable is if we do not cultivate the habit of persistence, we will never achieve noteworthy success in any calling.

The Mastermind Principle

Power may be defined as organised and intelligently directed knowledge and effort.

Organised effort is most effectively produced through the coordination of effort of two or more people towards a definite end in a spirit of cooperation and expressing it through definite plans of action.

No individual may have great power without availing himself consciously or unconsciously of a mastermind.

There are two key characteristics of the mastermind principle. The first is economic in nature and the second is psychic.

Economic advantage may be created by a person who surrounds himself with the advice council and personal cooperation of a group of men who are willing to lend him wholehearted aid in a spirit of perfect harmony.

This form of cooperative alliance has been the basis of virtually every great fortune and success story. Ignore this truth at your peril.

The psychic phase of the mastermind principle is much more abstract and difficult to comprehend.

It has reference to the spiritual forces with which the human race is not well acquainted.

But it is true that no two human minds ever come together without thereby creating a third invisible intangible force that may be likened to a ‘third mind’.

Keep in mind the fact that there are only two known elements in the entire universe: energy and matter.

The human mind is a form of energy that is spiritual in nature. And when the minds of two people are coordinated in a spirit of cooperation the spiritual units of energy of each mind form an affinity which constitutes the physic phase of the mastermind.

Energy is nature’s universal set of building blocks. Through a process that only nature completely understands she translates energy into matter. Ideas and plans into their physical equivalent, into reality.

Nature’s building blocks are available to man through the energy involved in thinking.

It stands to reason therefore that a group of brains coordinated to think together will provide more creative thought energy than a single brain.

This is why the mastermind principle holds the secret of the power wielded by men who surround themselves with other men who think in a similar way. The increased energy created through this alliance then becomes available to every individual brain in the group.

Men take on the nature, power, and the habits of thought with those of whom they associate in a spirit of harmony and cooperation.

We have already established that thoughts are things. And the positive emotions that come with constructive thoughts power men to create plans which carry them forward and attract to them their possibilities and potentials.