The Seven Laws of Success
Why are only the very few- women as well as men-successful in life? Just what is success? Here is the surprising answer to life’s most difficult problem, proving that NO human need ever become a failure! All who have succeeded have followed these seven laws! The only WAY to success is not a copyrighted formula being sold for a price. You can’t buy it! The price is your own application to the seven existing laws.
Is THIS Success?
In the U.S. more businesses failed in recent years than in the last twenty. Across the world there is a shocking trend of increasing failures. Scores of millions experience failure in a life of unhappy circumstances.
Why are only the very few really successful? Is it mere chance, did it just happen or are there definite reasons? Why do all but the very few find themselves, by age 60 or 65, dependents? Why must children so often provide for aged parents-when it ought to be the other way around?
There are definite causes! Seven basic laws govern success! It is time people come to know them, and end this unhappy and needless tragedy!
Finding the Answer
Success does not just happen! It is governed by seven definite laws. If you know them, and apply them, the happy result, in the end, is assured. Every individual was put on this earth for a purpose! Every person was put here to become a success.
Every human ought to enjoy the sweet taste of success-to find peace and happiness-to live an interesting, secure, and prosperous life! And in order that all might reap such rewards, God set in motion actual, definite LAWS to produce that desired result.
The tragedy is that through the centuries we have turned our back’s on those laws, those causes of the very success we want! The world long ago ignored and forgot them. Today, most people do not know what they are. Most people have not followed a single one of the seven basic laws.
You Can’t Buy It!
One man promised his plan would make its followers prosperous or rich-the easy way. He advertised that it had made him rich. He boasted of his fine home. The inference was that it would make its purchasers equally prosperous-but he neglected to mention that it was those who bought his bogus plan who made him rich.
This man stumbled onto an advertising catch-phrase for a headline in magazine and newspaper advertisements, which multiplied responses. He used it for years. But ultimately it wore itself out. This "success" was neither real nor lasting. He was, himself, a colossal failure.
The only way to true success is not a formula being sold like merchandise. You can’t buy it with money, it comes to you FREE. There is a price, of course, your own application of these definite laws. It is not guaranteed to be the easy way, but it is guaranteed to be the only way to real success!
It Never Satisfied
Some "successful" men get their pictures on page one of newspapers, or on the front covers of national magazines. There’s nothing the public forgets so quickly as yesterday’s news! They seek the flattery of others. But, like an actor’s applause it doesn’t last and leaves them flat. So they become restless, discontented.
Their bank accounts may be full, but their lives are empty. And what they do acquire, which is never enough and never satisfies, they leave behind when they die. These men started with wrong goals-
Isn’t it about time we learn the true definition of SUCCESS?
Perhaps the prize example of all history is that of an ancient king, who accomplished much, gained fabulous wealth. This ancient king was young enough to try to really enjoy life. He could afford it, too. He was one of the wealthiest men who ever lived-with the resources of a nation at his command. If there was not enough money for a project he dreamed up, he simply raised the taxes.
So, he continued writing of his experiment in searching for happiness and success, "I went in for great works." National works and projects. "I built mansions, planted vineyards, laid out gardens and parks for myself, in which I planted all manner of fruit trees, making pools to water the trees in my plantations. I bought slaves, both men and women, and had slaves born within my household. I had large herds and flocks, larger than any before me.
I amassed silver and gold, royal treasures; I procured singers, both men and women, and many a mistress, man’s delight. Richer and richer I grew, more than any before me in my country… Nothing I coveted did I refuse myself: I denied my heart no enjoyment-for my heart did feel pleasure in all this-so much I did get from all my efforts. "But," he concluded, "when I turned to look at all I had achieved and at my efforts and trouble, then it was all vain and futile…all was VANITY, and a striving after wind. Nothing in this world is worthwhile. Simply because, with all his wisdom, this man sought pleasure-happiness-success-his own way, in materialism.
In the beginning God designated and set in motion living laws for the very purpose of producing happiness in all humans who would follow them. These are the seven great laws of success!
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CHAPTER 1: Fix The Right Goal
Certainly nothing in life is more important than to know: what is real success-and how to achieve it. What, is the first law of success? Considering such general principles of character as honesty, patience, loyalty, courtesy, dependability, punctuality, etc., etc., these are automatically included in the seven rules. We cannot become a real success without these principles of right character.
Here is the first law of success: FIX THE RIGHT GOAL! Not just any goal. The right goal will determine effort and incentive. There should be an overpowering purpose to life. Few have ever known such purpose. This most important question in life remained a mystery.
IF we could discover the overall definite purpose for which humans were put on earth a human potential greater than mere temporary existence, we would think that PURPOSE would be the goal that should excite ambition! The first law of real success is to have the right goal!
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CHAPTER 2: Education and Preparation
You must first set the right goal, and then comes the preparation to achieve that goal. So, the SECOND law of success, in time sequence, is education and preparation. How can we expect to accomplish our purpose unless we acquires the know-how?
One thing we need to know about life is that we do not come equipped with instinct. To this extent, the animals have a certain advantage over us. But they cannot plan, design and construct new and different things. They cannot develop moral and spiritual character.
We can experiment, invent and learn about infinitesimal particles of matter. We learn to fly higher, farther and faster. We learn how to take nature apart and make it work for us. We discover and utilize nuclear energy.
Once you have learned enough to choose a goal, the second step toward success is to acquire the additional education, training, experience, to give you the know-how to achieve your goal.
The entire system of education in this world neglects to recapture the true values. Even the educators themselves often devote themselves to years of research into non-essential channels.
Right education must teach that all things are a matter of cause and effect, that for every result, whether good or evil, there is a cause. Right education must not stop at teaching to live. It must know, and teach, the purpose of human life, and how to fulfill it.
This world is learning false education that has come down to us from the thinking, yet misguided who lacked a knowledge of the true values and purposes of life! The true history of education is an eye-opening story in itself! Return to Chapters
CHAPTER 3: Good Health
The THIRD all-important law is Good Health. The mind and the body form the most wonderful physical mechanism we know. Some of the most famous doctors and surgeons have said that 70 to 95 % of all sickness and disease comes from faulty diet! Most have grown up eating just whatever seemed to taste good-and whatever they saw others eating. There has been little education about what we should or should not eat.
Most degenerative diseases are penalties for eating foods that have been de mineralized in food factories-usually an excess of starch, sugar (carbohydrates) and fats. Others are caused by a type of malnutrition- lack of needed minerals and vitamins in foods. Then people try to put the "vitamins" back into their systems.
The medical profession has made great strides toward eliminating communicable diseases, yet is having little success coping with the increase of the non-communicable diseases-such as cancer, heart diseases, diabetes, kidney diseases. These are affected by faulty diet. Of course there are other laws of health-sufficient sleep, exercise, plenty of fresh air, cleanliness and proper elimination, right thinking, clean living.
Mental attitude has considerable influence on physical condition. Most "successful" men think constructively, positively with confidence. They do not allow themselves to think negatively or assume an attitude of fear, worry, or discouragement. They maintain emotional balance.
Without good health we are limited in achievement. The fourth Law of Success is largely dependent on good health.
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CHAPTER 4: Drive!
You may have chosen your goal, and have tremendous ambition to achieve it. And have education and training for its accomplishment, and good health and still make little or no progress toward its realization. After all success is DOING.
The fourth success-law, is DRIVE! Half-hearted effort might carry you a little way toward your goal, but it will never get you far enough to reach it. You will always find that the executive head of any growing, successful organization employs drive! He not only drives himself, he drives those under him.
Often workmen never rise above whatever job they may have because they have no drive. They would never become successful farmers, a farmer to succeed, must get up early and work late, and drive himself. That is one reason so many must work for others. Without energy, drive, a person need never expect to become truly successful.
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CHAPTER 5: Resourcefulness
When complications appear to block your path, you must be equipped with RESOURCEFULNESS to solve the problem, overcome the obstacle, and continue on.
The IBM people used to put out a famous card found in many offices, which says "THINK!" and sometimes they deliberately spell it "THIMK!"
When sudden emergencies arise, you need a clear mind, calm nerves, rapid thinking. You need resourcefulness to get all the facts and make a wise decision.
Do you keep calm in emergencies, or lose your head and go to pieces, or do you think clearly and logically.
To succeed, you need to cultivate the ability, and the habit, of remaining calm, yet acting to reach the right decision, then acting on it!
We would think that these five laws should be all that is required to guarantee ultimate success. And yet nine out of ten who have all these five still fail-without the important sixth law.
CHAPTER 6: Perseverance
Nine out of ten, at least once or twice in a lifetime, come to the place where they appear to be totally defeated! They give up and quit, when just a little more determined hanging on, just a little more faith and perseverance would have turned apparent certain failure into success. Law number six is PERSEVERANCE!
I have reached that point more than once! I had been making an income, still in my twenties, equivalent to an executive’s salary in today’s dollar value. But some 90 percent of it came from five or six big Midwestern corporations. Most of these corporations went into receivership.
Later, an advertising business I had started on the west coast was wiped out by an association decision made in the east. A million dollar project was lost. But I did not quit or give up. That was when my life’s goal was changed!
Even the first two years of the operation of Ambassador College stared constant defeat in the face. Nearly everybody thought we were through-we had failed! In those days I had to listen to associates around me talking constantly about "when this college folds up."
But we got over our first financial hump. Later, the second. We may be justified in saying that the college became a success.
CHAPTER 7: The Overlooked Seventh Law
It would seem that if we follow these SIX laws of success, nothing more should be required! Is it possible that God might be a factor in determining the success or failure in your life? Few now think so.
People will ignore any idea of God’s guidance and help, yet it is remarkable how in last-resort most people will pray to Him who they have ignored, and disobeyed, all their lives.
Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to have sought His help all along? Yet some have acquired wealth, lived luxuriously, and suddenly losing all, then turned finally to God in their economic distress. Few will ever rely on God until they feel helpless and in desperate need. Even then the motive often is selfish.
If we are to enjoy the good things of life the source of their supply is God! Since all comes from Him anyway, why not tap the source from the very beginning?
But in our day of science, it has not been fashionable to believe in God. In this deceived world, knowledge of God has found little or no place in modern education.
The all important seventh Law of Success, is having contact, guidance and continuous help from God! And the person who does put this all-important seventh law last is probably dooming his life to failure at the end.
Why of First Importance
Look again at the very first Law. It is not merely choosing a goal. It is setting the right goal. The "successful" of this world all had goals. But their goals led to material ends.
The main goals of those supposed to be successful in the world usually are two: Vanity-desire for status; and money with the material things it will buy. But happiness is not material, and money is not it’s source. Vanity, as Solomon observed, is like striving after wind!
The "successful" of this world applied six of the success laws. But they left God out of the picture, and the happiness of real success out of their lives, almost no one today, realizes HOW, WHY and WHAT we are, and WHY we are?
1. While man was made a material being, sustained by eating material food and drinking material water, he was made also to need spiritual food, God’s Spirit, to be truly and continually happy. Nothing else really satisfies.
2. Everything man needs to make life continuously satisfying, must come from God. He is the source of supply. He is the giver of everything good.
The right goal sets the direction of your life’s journey. Success is the destination of that journey. Success is where you finally arrive-and true Success includes a happy and enjoyable journey along the way.
PURPOSE to Life?
Is there, after all, a PURPOSE to life? Of course men cut off from God have no knowledge of that purpose, that knowledge is not material. Spiritual knowledge can be transmitted only by what God tells us, and this world has rejected truth. Men cut off from God are groping in the dark.
But the Maker has sent an instruction book along with the human mechanism He made. It reveals life’s real purpose-the potential destiny of man! They ignore it as something beneath their pride of intellect to consider.
The ignored 95% of that book contains the answers to the purpose of life, the laws that govern it, the answer to what is success, and how to achieve it!
Free to Choose
Understand this! You are a free moral agent. God will never "cram His religion down your throat." He not only allows you to choose the wrong way. He compels you to make your own decision.
God has set two ways before us. One, His Way, the cause of all the good things you want here and now, plus real success- continuously living forever. The other the way mankind has gone, in rebellion against God and His Law, the way that causes all unhappiness and suffering. And God compels you to choose! Yet He commands you to choose the way that leads to real success. Deut. 30:19.
You Need HELP
That ultimate TRUE Success is something you cannot attain by yourself. The ingredient you lack is the guidance, the power and Spirit Of God. You must make the decision. You must set this right GOAL. You must set your will and must expend your full effort. You must work at overcoming, growing and developing spiritually. Yet God supplies His power, His love, faith and His guidance!
7th Law Changes Everything
Now look how DIFFERENT a life becomes when this SEVENTH success law is utilized.First, it will completely alter your overall major goal, you will have other minor goals-such as the profession or occupation to provide material needs, and help achieve the major goal.
Your main goal, now, will be spiritual and not material. It will follow the way of life of the Ten Commandments. You will actually live by every Word of God -that is the Bible.
Now re-examine the Second Law of Success. Your education and entire preparation will be DIFFERENT. You will seek to learn the true values of life. This means your number one textbook will be the Bible. It will show you the mind of God.
Third, you will receive the knowledge which God reveals about the laws of HEALTH.
The FOURTH LAW. If you are motivated by God’s word you’ll have DRIVE. God commands that you do what you do with your might. Apply yourself! Whatever is worth doing is worth doing the very best you can! Nine Biblical passages command that you apply yourself with diligence!
Ten other places in the Bible command us to be diligent. And 36 Scriptures command, or show the example of acting diligently! Many of these instruct us diligently to seek God’s guidance and help, diligently to keep His commandments. How about the businessman? "… a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before (obscure) men." Prov. 22:29. The Bible commands industriousness!
Solving Problems
Law Number FIVE. No matter how intelligent, alert, or resourceful you may be, YOU NEED GOD’S WISDOM and help in solving the constant problems and meeting the―recurring obstacles. Whether it is in business, a profession, or private life. The man who can take these emergencies―these problems―to God’s counsel and advice is going to have guidance! That is, of course, provided we are submissive, obedient, diligent, faithful. Wisdom comes from God.
"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God…and it shall be given" (James 1:5). Wisdom must be applied to every specific circumstance individually. The need of getting all of the facts bearing on a case before making a decision. But it requires more. God’s Word says that in multitude of counselors there is safety.
You cannot know, if you have never had God’s help, how much it means! We are saved from costly mistakes, worries and the "headaches" most businessmen have to suffer over such problems.
It PAYS Off!
People trying to live without God’s help in their lives are missing the most practical and valuable asset they could have. In the language of our day, it pays off! Of course we have to use our own efforts and resources. But we have that added security of God’s guidance. Often God simply works out circumstances. He literally gives you the breaks!
Finally, look at Law Number SIX. Perseverance-Enduring-Never giving up. These Seven Laws are the way not only to business and economic success, they are the laws that lead to rewarding, interest filled lives. And in the end to living forever in the Kingdom of God.
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Summary, Herbert Armstrong, Free Library Copy
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