(An excerpt from If You Can Count to Four available on Amazon)

The Secret of Genuine Success

I wonder whether you have made some of the same observations I have made? From childhood, I always wondered why so many people in the community were not as prosperous as, apparently, they deserved. At the same time, a few people seemed to have everything. They seemed to have learned the secret of enjoying life. They also enjoyed a large measure of health, and I also noticed particularly, at that time, and at my level of appreciation, that they were enjoying a large measure of prosperity.

I asked myself the question why so many were not getting the best out of life and why so few had found the apparent secret. I decided to try to find the answer quite early in my life, and in a small way, I began my research. After graduating from high school, I began a planned and organized research. Over a period of 25 years, and I did special research on what I choose to call the practical aspects of psychology. It was my privilege to discover the answer to this problem and I would like to share it with you.

Before I give you the answer, however, I would like to make this observation. From the beginning I knew about this secret of success. I found also that the majority of the people actually have known about this secret all of their lives, but I found that even though I knew about it, and even though I found that everyone knew about it, very few of them knew it in such a way that they could take it into their lives and use it in a practical way. In other words, people knew about it, but, were not able to express it.

They were not enjoying a measure of happiness, health and prosperity, and as they deserved, and would be enjoying, if they knew how to use this secret. And thus I want to define this secret so you will not just know about it, but you will know it so well that you can use this principle and make it a habit in your everyday experience of living.

I would like first to illustrate the difference between knowing about something, and actually knowing it and living it. So you automatically use it in every expression of your daily living. A certain man is a lifeguard at a large swimming pool, approximately 100 feet long. He has developed such proficiency as a swimmer that he can swim the length of the pool over 50 times without stopping. That would be a mile. He has also the ability to rescue those who are in trouble. He has the strength, power and technique as a swimmer, and can truly stand up and say, “I am a swimmer.”

However, another man is a very proficient lecturer on swimming. He has large classes where he lectures on the techniques of swimming. He knows all of the strokes. In the classroom, he has grace and charm in his ability to describe all of the intimate techniques of swimming.

One day, one of the students asked this professor where he learned to swim.

He replied that he had learned to swim in the library.

Now I ask you, which one of these gentlemen would you like to be with when your boat turned over in deep water? You would choose the one who is the lifeguard at the swimming pool, who can swim 50 laps without any trouble at all and who can rescue you. I am sure you would choose him because he is a swimmer. Every cell in his body has been saturated with an awareness of all of the techniques of swimming, and he has proved, by experience, that he can swim. He has strength and power and knowledge of swimming. He can do the things he teaches as a matter of habit. But the professor only knows about it, can tell you all about it, but he cannot do it.

Now, in this thing called success, it has been my privilege to observe that most people are just like the professor who learned about swimming in the library. Yes, the majority of people, relative to success, are in the same position as the professor. They know all about success, but they are not successful.

They are frustrated and emotionally disturbed. They are filled with fears and worries and concerns and anxieties, and life does not mean a great deal to them because it expresses itself in terms of disharmony and frustration. But if they knew not only how to be successful and if they practice the rules of success, which are available to all people today, they would soon learn to be happy in a tangible fashion just as the swimmer learned to swim. But many of us are still trying to be successful, like the swimmer who wants to be a swimmer, but never gets in the water.

So, in my own case, this quest started many, many years ago. I wanted to know why so many people knew about success, but so few people were successful. I would like to pass the answer I discovered on to you. The answer is that any individual, on the face of this earth, can be genuinely happy, genuinely healthy and a genuinely prosperous if he will do just one thing.

Switch his focal point of attention from “How much can I get out of life?” and developed a habitual concern about, “How much can I give?”

In other words, any individual on the face of the earth can be happy, healthy and prosperous if he will seek an opportunity to serve where there is an unlimited opportunity to serve humanity.

He must find that particular channel, which he seems to have been designed to serve through, and then get into that channel of service, where there is a genuine need, where there is a genuine opportunity to serve. Then, he must become proficient and learn to render, first of all, a quality of service, which means integrity and know-how.

After he has learned to render a quality of service, he must learn to render a quantity of service. Of course, he will be compensated according to the quality and quantity of service rendered. He will be compensated in two ways.

The first compensation that I would like to share with you is a compensation that has meant more to me than any other I have ever experienced. That is the feeling of satisfaction I experience from having gone out with one idea in mind, in my daily activities, and finding an opportunity to render a real, genuine service without any thought of financial remuneration as the number one motive. That feeling of satisfaction I choose to call “livingness.”

This “livingness” – this feeling of real satisfaction, once experienced, through switching your focal point of attention from being interested in making money to rendering a genuine service to humanity, will be a revelation to you. Your “livingness” with this genuinely felt adjustment and focal point will not be worthy to be compared with the so-called thrill of making money, but, a switch of focal point from making money as a prime motive to one of genuine service reaps a more satisfying return to you.

The first compensation, to one who has dedicated himself to this secret of success of rendering a great service to humanity, is “livingness.”

Of course, the great universal law of compensation proves to us that we are compensated, in the coin of the realm, according to the quality and the quantity of service rendered, and I would like to say that this law of success is not a theory.

I will never teach anything which is based upon a theory. Everything that I want to share with you is based upon scientific research and experience.

Now, this idea of switching our focal point of attention from seeking money, power and fame seeking first to render a quality and a quantity of service to humanity is based upon a system of laws and rules as tangible as mathematics, as tangible as electricity, as tangible as chemistry itself.

We all know that mathematics, electricity, and the chemistry are sciences which are tangible and exact. An electrician can come into your home and wire your building and he can tell you that a certain light will burn, and that your television set will work, and that every electrical appliance will work according to an exact science.

Men and women study for months and years learning this exact science known as electricity. We all know that mathematics is also an exact science. We all know that chemistry is an exact science. I have found that most people are like I have been most of my life.

They do not realize that success and thinking are also based upon an exact science, a set of rules, a set of laws which any individual who is sincerely seeking the answer to the problems of frustration and ill health and poverty can study. They can study these rules, as electricians study electricity, and as a mathematician studies mathematics. They can learn these rules and practice them until they become automatic through the law habit. Doing this will guarantee them a large measure of happiness, health and prosperity, according to their individuality.

I would like to challenge each and every one of you to realize t