Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:07:02 — 30.7MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Week 23 of The Master Key System is a biggie. It’s the chapter that discusses what everybody really wants to know: How does one make money and get rich?

For the past twenty-two weeks, we’ve been learning quite a few things and doing quite a few different exercises. We’ve learned how our mind works, how the world works, even, to one extent or another, how the Universe works.

That’s all fine and good.

I’ve been publishing the books of Charles F. Haanel for over ten years. I’ve written numerous articles about Haanel’s philosophy. I’ve been quoted, written about, interviewed, and referred to. Heck! I’ve even been deferred to a few times. I’ve been coaching people in this philosophy for more than a few years — and I’ve yielded some awesome results for my coaching clients.

Through all that time and through all those experiences, above all else, what people ask me the most — “most” being about 99.99% of the time — is …

How do we use this “stuff” to get rich?

Of course, those aren’t the words that are used. Some people want to “share in the abundance” or “receive the gifts from the Universe.”

I call a spade a spade. We want to know how we can get rich. Plain and simple.

It’s why we read these books. It’s why we want to improve ourselves.

And it’s OK. Money plays a big part of our lives. We should want more. We should get more. We should attain more.

Luckily, Week 23 explains how all of that is possible.

The Letter of Transmittal

The “Letter of Transmittal” for Week 23 is awesome. There’s so much in just this one page of text that a person could spend a week just studying it alone.

That being the case, here is the “Letter” in its entirety.

In the part which I have the honor to transmit herewith, you will find that money weaves itself into the entire fabric of our very existence; that the law of success is service; that we get what we give and for this reason we should consider it a great privilege to be able to give.

We have found that thought is the creative activity behind every constructive enterprise. We can therefore give nothing of more practical value than our thought.

Creative thought requires attention, and the power of attention is, as we have found, the weapon of the Super-man. Attention develops concentration, and concentration develops Spiritual Power, and Spiritual Power is the mightiest force in existence.

This is the science which embraces all sciences. It is the art which, above all arts, is relevant to human life. In the mastery of this science and this art there is opportunity for unending progression. Perfection in this is not acquired in six days, or in six weeks, or in six months. It is the labor of a life. Not to go forward is to go backward.

It is inevitable that the entertainment of positive, constructive, and unselfish thoughts should have a far-reaching effect for good. Compensation is the key-note of the universe. Nature is constantly seeking to strike an equilibrium. Where something is sent out, something must be received, else there should be a vacuum formed. By observance of this rule you cannot fail to profit in such measure as to amply justify your effort along this line.

What’s in there is everything that we have learned in the previous twenty-two weeks — and then some.

Read that a few times. Listen to the audio of the Teleseminar. I’ll be commenting on what’s there as we explore the main points of this week.

Got the “Money Consciousness”?

In the first Week of The Master Key System, Mr. Haanel asked us “Would you bring into your life more power? … More health? … More happiness?”

In the first point of Week 23, Haanel talks about the “money consciousness.”

1. The money consciousness is an attitude of mind. It is the open door to the arteries of commerce. It is the receptive attitude. Desire is the attractive force which sets the current in motion and fear is the great obstacle by which the current is stopped or completely reversed and turned away from us.

It is an “attitude of mind.”

That means that if we wish to make money — if that is what we truly desire — then we must become aware of the way money works — of how it is made, of how it is transferred, of how it flows. It’s not merely an awareness that we live in an “abundant Universe,” as so many talking heads blather. It’s an understanding of how the system works and how to tap into that system

As Haanel writes in the very next sentence, “It is the open door to the arteries of commerce.”

Commerce. It is defined in Wikipedia as

Commerce is the exchange of goods and services from the point of production to the point of consumption to satisfy human wants. It comprises the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information, or money between two or more entities.

That’s what Haanel is talking about in this chapter. Frankly, that’s what Haanel’s been writing about throughout the entire book!

Sadly, that’s the point that most people miss as they study The Master Key System or other books like it. For some reason, they were lead to believe that by thinking about something and staring at a picture on a post-it board they’ll somehow cause the Universal ether to coalesce into the object of their desire.

It doesn’t happen that way.

By now we know the “method”: Thought leads to action which yields results.

If our thoughts are on money — if we have the “money consciousness” — then our thoughts will influence our actions into commerce. Our goal will be to “satisfy human wants.”

We’ll become a “player” in the “game.”

This is only possible, though, as we are confident and strong. We must be proud of what we do and what we offer. Otherwise, we will succumb to fear.

Fear brings about the “poverty consciousness” because it stifles our participation in the life of commerce. That’s why it’s the “opposite from the money consciousness.”

So, How Do We Make Money?

Point #3 is the key point for this week. This will explain just about everything.

3. We make money by making friends, and we enlarge our circle of friends by making money for them, by helping them, by being of service to them. The first law of success then is service, and this in turn is built on integrity and justice. The man who at least is not fair in his intention is simply ignorant; he has missed the fundamental law of all exchange; he is impossible; he will lose surely and certainly; he may not know it; he may think he is winning, but he is doomed to certain defeat. He cannot cheat the Infinite. The law of compensation will demand of him an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

That’s Economics 101 in a nutshell. Class dismissed. Go and make money.

We make money by “making friends” and we make friends by “making money for them, by helping them, by being of service to them.”

In other words, we “satisfy human wants.” We supply a good or service that people want or need. The more people we satisfy — the more “friends” we make — the more money we receive.

We become our “brother’s keeper.”

This is why capitalism works so well. Frankly, capitalism isn’t the best economic system, it’s the only economic system. You see, no matter how you cut it, no matter what political system you put in place, no matter how you try to control the masses, people will always find a way to trade value for value. Take money from the picture and people will trade favors; remove those and people will trade on status … Always one value for another.

But I digress.

Haanel writes, then, that the first — the first! — “law of success then is service, and this in turn is built on integrity and justice.”

As we “serve” people — as we “satisfy human wants” — we make money; but we can only do so as long as we are honest in our dealings. If we fail — if we cheat or deliver shoddy goods or performances — then we won’t be in business for very long. We will be “doomed to certain defeat.”

Now, many people think that this applies only to those who have or want to have a business.

Nothing is further from the truth. This applies to those who have jobs and who want better jobs just as much. It’s all the same.

A person who has a job is trading value for value just as the businessman. The employee is trading his skills and his service to the employer for money.

Listen to the audio for the Teleseminar. There is a lot there, especially for those who are seeking employment or a better position. It’s good stuff!

The Third Axiom of Success

We further learn how to make money — not only that, but how to make a “money magnet” of ourselves — in point #5.

5. You can make a money magnet of yourself, but to do so you must first consider how you can make money for other people. If you have the necessary insight to perceive and utilize opportunities and propitious conditions and recognize values, you can put yourself in position to take advantage of them, but your greatest success will come as you are enabled to assist others. What benefits one must benefit all.

How can you make money for other people?

Now, when you think on that, don’t limit yourself into thinking that you have to become an investor or stock broker of some sort.

Making money for other people can entail anything that saves a person time or effort. Think about that. Why do you buy what you buy? Go where you go?

You pay a grocer money to buy fruits and vegetables because it beats all hell out of growing your own. You pay people a lot of money to buy and own a car because that car saves you time by transporting you places quicker than your feet can.

In other words, time truly is money.

An employer hires someone to make money for him. Maybe not directly, but by saving him the time and effort it would take to do the task.

Are you getting that? Is that making sense?

That’s why Haanel has the big condition there.

“If you have the necessary insight to perceive and utilize opportunities…”

By thoroughly studying and applying the philosophy of Haanel, you will have that insight to perceive. It’s a matter of seeing the world as it truly is — in all its grit and glory. It’s a matter of seeing — perhaps sensing — what people want and then making the Herculean effort of supplying it for them.

That last part is pretty much my “Third Axiom of Success.”

Successful people don’t focus on the things that they want; they focus on what other people want and make those things available to them for a profit.

I am going to deliver a small rant here. Just a wee-little one. I promise.

One of the main reasons I was so miffed when that infomercial The Secret was so popular was that sequence with the boy who wanted the bicycle.

If you haven’t seen the movie, it happens like this. A boy wants a bike. He stares at pictures of the bike he wants. He fixates on the bike with all his thought wherever he goes. Until … The “law of attraction” delivers the bike to him — as a gift from someone.

Were you as offended as I was by that? Did it cause you to facepalm? Were you as skeeved as I was by the pedophile-looking dude who gave the bike to the kid?

How much better — and more poignant — would the movie had been if they showed a kid who wanted a bike. He uses his mind to develop ways that he could earn the money he needs for the bike. He mows lawns, gets a paper route, walks dogs … The typical stuff. Then, with the money he earns, he “attracts” the bike to himself.

Wouldn’t that have been great? That would have been awesome!

It would have been awesome because the successful aren’t successful because they sit around and think about the things that they want. On the contrary! They think about the things that other people want — and do their best to supply those things.

A carpenter will spend ten hours a day building a house for someone else!

A business man spends time, money, and effort planning a factory to manufacture televisions for people he will never meet!

A writer pens a book so people he may never meet will see the world a little differently.

In all those cases, it’s people doing things for other people. These other people — these strangers — then become “friends” as Haanel would have said.

Giving: It’s Not Just for Charity Anymore

In those three cases — the carpenter, the businessman, and the writer — those people gave. It’s not giving in the charitable sense. No, this is something different.

In point #6 Haanel writes

6. A generous thought is filled with strength and vitality, a selfish thought contains the germs of dissolution; it will disintegrate and pass away. Great financiers like Morgan and others are simply channels for the distribution of wealth; enormous amounts come and go, but it would be as dangerous to stop the outgo as the income; both ends must remain open; and so our greatest success will come as we recognize that it is just as essential to give as to get.

Wealth comes in many forms: money (of course), skill, talent, ability. Those are just a few.

They all share one thing in common. In order for us to benefit from whatever wealth we have, we must “give” it. We must use it.

Even before one book is sold, a writer will toil over his tome for months, maybe years. A carpenter will study his craft for years, will apprentice for years, will do lowly jobs for years before he makes top dollar for doing the big jobs.

We must give to get.

As I have indicated, though, that does not mean that by donating to charity will we get something back from it, like interest or something.

As Haanel clarifies in point #7

7. If we recognize the Omnipotent power that is the source of all supply, we will adjust our consciousness to this supply in such a way that it will constantly attract all that is necessary to itself and we shall find that the more we give the more we get. Giving in this sense implies service. The banker gives his money, the merchant gives his goods, the author gives his thought, the workman gives his skill; all have something to give, but the more they can give, the more they get, and the more they get the more they are enabled to give.

Get it? Are you really getting it?

Good.

THINK

In The Master Key Workbook I wrote this.

The founder of IBM, Thomas J. Watson Sr., made a single word the company motto:

THINK

Thought may be the only thing that you have at the moment. It will always be the most valuable thing that you own. A labourer has a wage that has a cap, because the physical body has bounds; a thinker knows no bounds because the Mind is in touch with the Infinite.

One idea can change the world. One idea can net for you millions of dollars. Look around you and realize that everything that you have came from somewhere and that everything originated in the mind. Someone’s mind envisioned and planned what you are using, sitting on, watching, eating.

Never before has it been more possible to realize your idea. Production costs are decreasing, the Internet has become a viable medium, and knowledge and information are everywhere. We are in the midst of a great Renaissance. Take advantage of everything. Think!

Haanel wrote this in points #8 and #9.

8. The financier gets much because he gives much; he thinks; he is seldom a man that lets any one else do his thinking for him; he wants to know how results are to be secured; you must show him; when you can do this he will furnish the means by which hundreds or thousands may profit; and in proportion as they are successful will he be successful. Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and others did not get rich because they lost money for other people. On the contrary, it is because they made money for other people that they became the wealthiest men in the wealthiest country on the globe.

9. The average person is entirely innocent of any deep thinking; he accepts the ideas of others and repeats them in very much the same way as a parrot; this is readily seen when we understand the method which is used to form public opinion and this docile attitude on the part of a large majority, who seem perfectly willing to let a few persons do all their thinking for them, is what enables a few men in a great many countries to usurp all the avenues of power and hold the millions in subjection. Creative thinking requires attention.

As we think, as we truly think, we become our own person. We lead. We cease to be a follower.

That’s why one of the main things you should be getting from The Master Key System is the ability to truly think. It’s powerful!

Now, as Haanel wrote in the “Letter of Transmittal,” it’s not something that is “ac- quired in six days, or in six weeks, or in six months.” No, it is “the labor of life.”

With practice, though, comes better.

The Exercise for Week 23

This week concentrate on the fact that man is not a body with a spirit, but a spirit with a body, and that it is for this reason that his desires are incapable of any permanent satisfaction in anything not spiritual. Money is therefore of no value except to bring about the conditions which we desire and these conditions are necessarily harmonious. Harmonious conditions necessitate sufficient supply, so that if there appears to be any lack, we should realize that the idea—or soul—of money is service, and as this thought takes form, channels of supply will be opened and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that spiritual methods are entirely practical.

Whether you’re religious or spiritual or not, this exercise makes sense — and will help you.

You see, the body part of us is somewhat inconsequential. What really matters, what really counts is the spirit — the brain, the thoughts, the insight. That’s the spirit!

And that’s where the “money” comes from. It comes from our thoughts. Our thoughts lead to our actions. As our thoughts look outward to others and we become insightful to what opportunities are available, we “attract” money to ourselves.

It’s easy. There are no tricks to it.

The “soul” of money is service. Plain and simple.

Get it?

That’s how you get rich.

So, stop dallying here and go and get thyself rich!

Until next week, may you get for yourself the best of everything.