Robert Collier Be RICH, Science of Getting Rich

The Nucleus

Remember, everything in this universe must start with a nucleus. A single electron is touched in the right way to start revolving on its axis. The magnetism engendered by it draws to it other particles of a like nature, setting them in motion likewise. With that as a nucleus, it can grow and multiply indefinitely, as long as its rate of motion continues. It is only when something slows it down that it disintegrates and dies.

How can you start such a nucleus? With an IDEA, backed by earnest desire and faith.

Suppose you want to build a business of your own, for instance. I’ll tell you how one man of my acquaintance did it.

When Bruce Haughton decided to start an automotive business in Jacksonville, FL., he had only $23.00 to his name. With $14.40 of his capital, he bought some tools. Then he rented the 2-car garage in the back yard of the house where he had secured a room and set up his sign!

He did not depend upon the sign, however, to bring in business. He figured that he was the only one who could do that. So he called upon a number of professional men and told them of the personal service he could give their cars, which they could not get elsewhere. In odd moments during the next few weeks, he continued those calls. Thereafter he used letters and postcards to tell more people about his distinctive service.

At the end of the first thirty days, he had a net return from his investment of money, work and brains of $476.80, with an overhead expense of only $50.00.

That was in the spring. By June, he found that he needed bigger quarters, for 591 regular customers were already coming to his “Back Yard Garage” for service they could not buy elsewhere.

In February of the following year, he had to move again this time to a corner in one of the best parts of the city. A year later, he moved a third time closer by five blocks to the business section, within easy reach of the big office building where the larger part of his clientele was located — and ten times as big as his last place!

Not only that, but he started a Motor Club that soon had fifty branches all over Florida and Georgia. In these garages, his products were sold, his name became known, his service was talked about.

And all on a capital of $23.00! On that, and an idea, and work, and a thorough belief in his ability to render a better service than anyone else could give!

But perhaps you will say — “He had special skill. He was a good auto mechanic. I have no particular skill or ability. What am I to do?”

Find some way of serving people better or more economically than it is now being done. Then learn HOW to do it, even though it means putting off the carrying out of your idea for months or years. With all the free night schools and public libraries of today, there is no excuse for not being able to learn anything you want to know.

Here is the way a friend of mine got out of the $25.00 a week class and into a highly profitable business. He had an idea that women’s clothes cost entirely too much, that if he could bring down the price a third, he could get the trade of many girls working in offices and stores, girls who must look well dressed but have not too much money to spend on clothes.

So what did he do? He took a low-paid job as assistant to a resident buyer; really not much more than a messenger boy. But it took him into all the manufactures’ workshops. It made him acquainted with everyone who made the kind of dresses he was interested in. It gave him an insight into wholesale prices and methods of buying. When he was ready, he raised a little money through family and friends and opened a small upstairs office. Then he made daily rounds of the manufactures, picking up a discontinued model here, a job lot there, a few specials somewhere else — all at prices far below the usual wholesale figures.

As soon as he felt that he had enough to start with, he sent letters to lists of women working in nearby offices and shops, telling them of the unusual bargains he was able to offer and the reason for them. The result? Before the year was out, he had a profitable, growing business.

First the nucleus, the idea. Then something to start it into action, to make it revolve and draw to itself everything it needs for growth.

What is it YOU want — a home, a job, a business, money or health? You can get any or all of them, if you have the initiative to start something, the faith to carry on in the face of all obstacles.

For don’t forget this: No matter how good your start, your nucleus will not carry on by itself. It needs faith to keep it moving. It needs the urge of BELIEF to speed it up and give it the magnetic power to draw to itself the elements it needs for growth and strength, when obstacles get in its way and threaten to slow it down or stop it.

Why is it that few businesses outlast their founder? Because only he had the necessary faith and determination to keep the nucleus whirling. Faith is the motive power without which no business can run, without which any nucleus will speedily slow down and lose all its magnetic force.

You want a home, let us say, but you lack the money to buy the kind you would like. Forget money for the moment. That is not the most important part. Instead, picture on paper the exact type of home you are longing for. Cut from magazines illustrations showing just what you want in a home — the type of architecture, the construction, the grounds, the different rooms, even the furnishings. Put your Dream House on paper.

That is your nucleus. Now start it whirling. Now give it life. How? By doing something towards bringing that home into materialization.

One woman got a board and nails, and started to make a kitchen shelf. Another went to the 5 & 100 store each day and bought some item for the kitchen.

Do something to show your faith. Do something to start your nucleus into action, and continue to do little things. Not only that, but every time you look upon the picture of your Dream Home, admire it, be thankful for it and BELIEVE in it. “As your faith is, so shall it be unto you,” for it is your faith that provides the propelling force to your nucleus and gives it power to draw to it every element needed for its growth and fruition. As Lord Bulwer-Lytton put it “Nothing can defeat the resolute mind of even a peasant who believes.”

Suppose you want to sell something. Perhaps it is an idea you have for improving the business and you want to convince the boss of its value. Perhaps it is a car or an insurance policy or some other product that you feel some particular prospect should buy. Perhaps you want to sell some girl the idea that you would make her the ideal husband. How shall you go about it?

By selling YOURSELF first! Every sale, of whatever kind, must be made in your own mind first. Stand in front of a mirror and talk to the image reflected there. Sell him! Give him every argument you would give your prospect. Then look him in the eye and ask him “Do you believe this?” If he does not, depend upon it, your prospect will not. But if you can truly convince that man in the mirror, if you can look him in the eye and talk to him honestly, sincerely, convincingly, and have him nod in agreement with you, then believe me, you can sell anyone.

You have put life into your nucleus. You have started it whirling. You can call on your prospect, whoever he is, with the confident assurance that your sale is made. It may not be accomplished on the first visit. It may not be done on the second. Your nucleus may have to draw to itself other elements to complete the transaction, but if you can hold the faith, if you can keep the man in the mirror sold, your success is assured.

Napoleon Hill wrote “There is only one unfailing law of success in business it is BELIEF!” But how about health? What if you are ailing, weak, run down, and sickly?

More than 2,000 years ago, the Prophet Joel answered that question “Let the weak say, I am strong!” Shakespeare told us much the same when he said “Assume a virtue if you have it not.”

What is sickness? A slowing down of the vital processes, is it not? Every cell in your body is just a whirling bit of energy. Any that slow down are thrown off, excreted. But when the whole system slows down, you don’t throw off the waste matter, you don’t get rid of the poisons. The result? Aches and pains and a general feeling of lassitude and illness.

What better remedy could there be than speeding up your rate of motion, re-energizing all your cells and helping them to throw off all the elements that tend to slow you down. You CAN do it. You know that martial music will reanimate soldiers ready to drop with fatigue. You know that fragrant perfumes brighten you, that a sunshiny morning gives you more life and pep.

Why is it that inmates of insane asylums are more easily controlled if given plenty of sunshine? Why are children better behaved, why do YOU feel better, think better, act better when you have the benefit of the sun’s rays? Why is there so much truth in the old Italian proverb “Where the sun goes, the doctor goes not?”

Because sunshine not only speeds up the rate of motion of your cells, but as one authority puts it — “Sunlight is actually a food to the human body, stimulates growth, promotes the healthy functioning of blood and nerves.”

Cheerful affirmations, convincingly given, have the same stimulating effect. Thirty years ago, Emile Coue electrified the world with his cures of all manner of disease.

“Nobody ought to be sick!” he proclaimed, and proceeded to prove it by curing hundreds who came to him after doctors had failed to relieve them. Not only that, but he showed how the same methods could be used to cure one’s affairs, to bring riches instead of debts, success instead of drudgery.

What was back of his success? A law as old as the hills, a law that has been known to psychologists for years — the law that the subconscious mind accepts as TRUE anything that is repeated to it convincingly and often. And once it has accepted such a statement as true, it proceeds to do everything in its power to MAKE IT TRUE!

You ask a friend how he is, and he carelessly answers — “I am sick, I am poor, I am unlucky,” never stopping to think that by those very words he is fastening misfortune upon himself, suggesting to his subconscious mind that it proceed on the assumption that he IS sick or poor or weak or unfortunate.

“Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall HAVE them!”

That was the advice of the Master Psychologist of all time, the Great Healer, the Worker of Miracles. Again and again He assured those He cured that it was their FAITH that made them whole. And where such faith was lacking, as when He went back to the home of his childhood in Nazareth, it is written that — “There He did no might works!”

But how, you may ask, can you work up such faith? There are two ways. The first is through affirmations — CLAIMING the thing you want, telling your subconscious that you HAVE it, and keep on telling it in such convincing tones that it finally accepts the statement as fact and proceeds to bring it into being.

That was Coue’s way. His “Every day in every way I am getting better and better” or “richer and richer” helped many people. But if you want the best results, add this second factor: Stand in front of your mirror, look your reflection in the eye and talk to it as you would if you were a salesman, and upon you selling the man in the mirror depended everything important in your life. For it does!

If it is health you want, use some such affirmation as this:

“I am energy. I am strength. I am power. I am filled and thrilled with omnipotent life. The vitality of God permeates every fiber of my being. I am well and whole in every part of my body. The grace and poise of our Lord Jesus Christ enfolds me. O Living Father, this is thy holy temple. Thou are making it a perfect dwelling place from which shall radiate thy healing love and wisdom to all mankind. Father, thou art glorifying me that I also may glorify thee.”

Tell him that and BELIEVE it! When you can convince him that you do believe it, you will be well.

Here is another potent affirmation:

“Life abundant quickens me now. Love all powerful heals me. God’s strong, pure life is now active in and through every cell in my body. His perfect image of my every organ is now vitalized in me in perfect form. By the power and authority of Jesus Christ, every cell in my body is vitalized and restored. I have come to Him and I am healed.”

Money, success, happiness, can all be won in the same way. They all start with a nucleus, an idea, an ambition, a desire. They all require you to DO something to start that nucleus revolving on its axis and drawing to itself the elements necessary for its growth and successful completion. They all need faith to speed up the rate of motion and keep the nucleus growing.

Faith is the great impelling force. “If thou canst believe, all things are possible unto you.”