Things_]

We get what we desire because the things we desire are the
things we think about. Love begets love. The man who is looking
for trouble generally finds it. Despair is the forerunner of
disaster, and fear brings failure, because despair and fear are
the emotional elements attendant upon thoughts of defeat.

Behind every thing and every act is, and always has been,
thought--thought of sufficient intensity to shape and fashion the
physical event.

Mind, and mind alone, possesses the inscrutable power to create.

Your career is ordered by the thoughts you entertain. Mental
pictures tend to accomplish their own realization. Therefore, be
careful to hold only those thoughts that will build up rather
than tear down the structure of your fortunes.

[Sidenote: _Prerequisites to Achievement_]

Creative imagination is an absolute prerequisite to material
achievement.

The business man must scheme and plan and devise and foresee. He
must create in imagination today the results that he is to
achieve tomorrow. He must combine the elements of his past
experiential complexes into a mental picture of future events as
he would have them. Riches are but the material realization of a
financial imagination. The wealth of the world is but the sum
total of the contributions of the creative thoughts of the
successful men of all ages.

[Sidenote: _How to Take Radical Steps in Business_]

With these principles before you, you can plainly see that the
_creative imagination must be called upon in the solution of
every practical question in every hour of the business day._

Consider its part in two phases of your business life--first,
when you are contemplating a radical change in your business
situation; second, when you are seeking to improve some
particular department of your business.

[Sidenote: _How to Take Radical Steps in Business_]

In the determination of how best you can better yourself, either
in your present field of action or by the selection of a new one,
take the following steps: (1) Pass in review before the mind's
eye your present situation; (2) Your possible ways of betterment;
(3) The various circumstances and individuals that will aid in
this or that line of self-advancement; (4) The difficulties that
may confront you. Having selected your field, (5) Consider
various possible plans of action; (6) Have prevision of their
working out; (7) Compare the ultimate results as you foresee
them; (8) Decide upo