WE'RE AMAZED OF THE POWER OF AUTO-SUGGESTION

Let's begin by accompanying Bill McCall of Sydney, Australia on a journey from failure and defeat to success and achievement. 

It was at the age of 19 that Bill started a business of his own — hides and skins. He failed. At the age of 21, he ran for Federal Congress. And again, he failed. Now it seems that instead of crushing him, these and other defeats motivated this young Australian to develop inspirational dissatisfaction. 

So he began searching for rules of success. 

You see, Bill McCall wanted to become rich, and he thought he could find rules for acquiring wealth in inspirational books. Therefore, while checking the inspirational book section of the library, Bill became intrigued by the title Think and Grow Rich. He borrowed the book and began to read. He read it once, and then he read it again. And even though he read it the third time, Bill McCall was unable to understand exactly how he could apply the principles whereby some of the richest men in the world acquired their wealth. He told us: 

"I was reading Think and Grow Rich for the fourth time while walking leisurely along a business street in Sydney. And then it happened! It happened suddenly. I stopped in front of a meat market window and glanced up. And in that very fraction of a second I had a flash of inspiration." He smiled as he continued: 

"I exclaimed aloud, 'That's it! I've got it!' I was startled at my emotional outburst. So was a lady who was passing by. She stopped and looked at me in amazement. I hurried home with my new discovery." He continued seriously: 

"You see, I was reading Chapter Four entitled Auto-suggestion. The subheading was The Medium for Influencing the Subconscious Mind. 

"Now I remember that when I was a boy my father read aloud from Emile Coué's little book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Auto-suggestion" He then looked al Napoleon Hill and said: 

"It was you who pointed out in your book that if Emile Coué was successful in helping individuals avoid sickness and in bringing the sick back to good health, through conscious auto-suggestion, auto-suggestion could also be used to acquire riches or anything else one might desire 'Get rich through auto-suggestion': that was my great discovery. It was a new concept to me." McCall then described the principles. It almost seemed as if he had memorized them from the book itself. 

"You know: conscious auto-suggestion is the agency of control through which an individual may voluntarily feed his subconscious mind on thoughts of a creative nature, or, by neglect, permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find their way into the rich garden of his mind 

"When you read aloud twice daily the written statement of your desire for money with emotion and concentrated attention, and you see and feel yourself already in possession of the money, you communicate the object of your desire directly to your subconscious mind. Through repetition of this procedure, you voluntarily create thought habits, which are favorable to your efforts to transmute desire into its monetary equivalent. 

"Let me say again: It is most important that when you read aloud the statement of your desire through which you are endeavoring to develop a money consciousness, you read with emotion and strong feeling. 

"Your ability to use the principles of auto-suggestion will depend very largely upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning desire. 

"When I arrived home, out of breath for running, I immediately sat down at the dining room table and wrote: 'My definite major aim is to be a millionaire by 1960.'" Still looking at Napoleon Hill, be continued, "You mentioned that a person should be specific as to the amount of money he wants and set a date. I did." 

Now, the man to whom we were talking was not the young Bill McCall who failed at the age of 19. He became known as the Honorable William V. McCall, the youngest man ever to become a member of the Australian Parliament; as the former chairman of the board of directors of the Coca-Cola subsidiary in Sydney; and as the director of 22 family-owned corporations. And as to riches — he became a millionaire, and quite as rich as some of the men he had read about in the book from which he got the inspiration to explore the power of his subconscious mind with self-suggestion, (Incidentally, he became a millionaire four years ahead of schedule!)

(From "Success through positive mental attitude" book)