You Can Work Your Own Miracles (Fawcett Book) - Softcover

Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 in Virginia and had a long and successful career as a lecturer, author, and consultant to business leaders. His Think and Grow Rich is the all-time bestseller in its field, having sold millions of copies worldwide, and setting the standard for today's motivational thinking. He died in 1970.

Prologue
 
Every adversity, every unpleasant circumstance, every failure, and every physical pain carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s greatest essay, “Compensation,” confirms this truth in elaborate detail; and I have just passed through an experience that not only confirms it but has provided the means by which I may help millions of people convert physical pain into a constructive interlude of great benefit to themselves.
 
I was sitting in a dentist’s chair in Los Angeles, California, waiting for him to extract the last nine of my teeth, preparatory to fitting temporary dentures. My dentist had anesthetized both my upper and lower jaws and was waiting, as I thought, for the anesthetic to take effect. Every minute or so he inserted an instrument into my mouth and appeared to be examining my gums. After this had been going on for a while, I asked, “Doctor, aren’t you about ready to begin pulling my teeth?”
 
With a look of astonishment on his face, he replied, “What do you mean by that question? I have them all out but three. There they are, on the table in front of you.”
 
I looked, and sure enough, six of my teeth had been extracted without my knowing the operation was going on. Then followed a conversation between my dentist and myself which yielded to me the “seed of an equivalent benefit” as compensation for the dental surgery I had undergone. It may well benefit millions of people who will read my story and take advantage of the lesson it affords when they visit their dentists. That “seed” consisted in the plan and purpose of this volume, which were inspired by that conversation.
 
As the last three teeth had been extracted my dentist inquired, “Where were you while I was pulling six of your teeth?”
 
“Out at Radio Station KFWB,” I replied, “rehearsing my next Sunday broadcast.”
 
“Well,” my dentist exclaimed, “I have been practicing dentistry for thirty years, but I have never before had a patient sit in my chair and have teeth extracted without knowing it. How in the world could you do it?”
 
“That was easy enough,” I answered. “I conditioned my mind for this operation before you started it. Part of that conditioning consisted of my complete disassociation from it, by concentrating my mind on something pleasant and far removed from the operation itself.”
 
“Man alive!” returned my dentist. “If you know how to teach others to condition their minds for dental work, so as to take the fear out of dentistry, and you will publish your formula in a book, the dentists of this country will help you sell a million copies within a year.”
 
 
“Before I left my dentist’s office that day I had planned this volume and outlined the entire method by which I had converted the fear of dentistry into a magnificent interlude which may bring to millions of people the formula for mastery of physical pain.
 
A strange feature of this formula is that it is based upon the same method by which I have helped millions of people condition their minds for material prosperity. The formula has been more than fifty years in the making. It was begun when Andrew Carnegie commissioned me to organize the world’s first practical philosophy of individual achievement, and its refinement has come from the personal experiences of more than five hundred of America’s top-ranking successful people who collaborated with me in perfecting that philosophy.
 
Before I can hand over the formula it will be necessary for me to help the reader condition his or her mind to receive it. Just as one must master the fundamentals of elementary mathematics before going on to higher mathematics, so must one acquire the knowledge of mind-conditioning step by step, by studying the important subjects which are related to this knowledge, as set forth in the chapters which follow.
 
By patiently and thoughtfully following me through the pages of this volume, you may find a new world of riches you did not know you possessed. I shall describe, in plain language anyone can understand, the formula which helped me convert dental surgery into a magnificent interlude entirely free from pain.
 
But that is only the starter!
 
The system of mind-conditioning I shall reveal in this book will aid one in mastering many circumstances of life he does not desire, such as physical pain, sorrow, fear, and despair. It will also prepare him to acquire the things which are desired, such as peace of mind, self-understanding, financial prosperity and harmony in all human relations.
 
This volume is far and away the most revealing, in terms of utter frankness, of many subjects which I have left out of my previous books, because I desired to present them under the auspices of dentists and physicians whose patients need most of the information they convey.
 
In my previous books I have shown how to make one’s job, profession, or business pay off in profitable terms, and it has been estimated that my books have helped millions of people become financially prosperous. In this volume I have aimed to help people make LIFE pay off in terms of their own choice, through a system of self-discipline which has the astounding advantage of being subject to proof of its soundness by every reader of this volume.
 
Lastly, I have written this book for people who have personal problems they have not solved and unpleasant circumstances they must master, with the hope that it will be of great benefit to every person who reads it, and reflect credit on my physician and dentist friends who may recommend it to their patients.
 
At the beginning I only planned to write a book which would help people condition their minds for dentistry or surgery, but as I began to outline the skeleton of the book’s contents, I envisioned a much greater purpose than the original—a purpose which would give the reader the full benefit of more than forty years of research into the causes of both success and failure, happiness and misery; important knowledge I accumulated while organizing the Science of Success, which now appears under many different titles, with a reader following throughout most of the world.
 
In the chapters which follow I shall introduce some of the great miracles of life through which my readers may discover and appropriate the Twelve Great Riches described in a subsequent chapter. I shall also reveal the means by which fear, poverty, sorrow, failure, and physical pain may be transmuted into inspirational forces of great benefit.
 
Read with an open mind the chapters which follow and you shall have revealed to you the greatest of all miracles—one that I cannot describe because it is known only to you, and it is entirely under your control! This miracle is one which contains a password capable of making you free and helping you appropriate all of the Twelve Great Riches of Life. It can bring you peace of mind and give you a well-balanced life, consisting of every circumstance and every material thing you need or desire.
 
In this volume, I have given you, through the description of the miracles, one half of the password; but the other half is in your possession and must be added to the half I have provided. As you read these chapters, the half in your possession will be revealed to you. And when you recognize it, appropriate it, and begin to transmute it into a full life of your own making, you will understand that this volume has given you something much more important than the way to remove the fear of physical pain from dentistry and surgery.
 
And having thus become the master of a few simple things, you shall become also the master of still greater things.
—NAPOLEON HILL