Sense-training also has a financial aspect. The more attuned your senses are, the more you will hear, see, understand and remember. We seem to imagine that we see everything that is worth seeing, and hear everything that is worth hearing, and that these two leading senses never call for the attention of practiced discipline. We’re wrong. It is the trained mind that wins, always and everywhere.

Train Separately: Use Unitedly

In one way all the senses may be trained together. If you take a walk and on returning try to remember everything that has appealed to your senses, you are reproducing sights, sounds, odors, and mental images of touch. In practical work, however, it is found best to train the senses separately. This does not prove that you must educate the senses together. No more does the fact that when you examine a piece of cloth to see that it is all wool you do not trust to your sight alone, but run your fingers along the edge to compare it with your recollection of the peculiar feeling of pure wool. To use the senses together is one of the precautions necessary to obtain accurate knowledge, and the more highly developed each sense is, the better is it as a guide to facts. You can train your senses separately and use them together.

Accuracy and Speed

There are two desirable attributes in the power of observation – one is accuracy and the other is speed. It is necessary to look at some things very carefully in order to be sure whether or not they move, or whether or not they change color. Sometimes, a very close inspection of material is necessary in order to discover defects. All these operations depend on accuracy in noticing difference and agreement, and this accuracy is the direct result of attention. One of the first, and also one of the most difficult things in training the senses is to separate the action of one from another, as for instance to keep sight distinct from hearing.

Each sense plays its part in the problem of memory. According to the relative development of their senses, some persons remember things through the sense of sight, while others remember through impressions of sound. Often the memory of individuals is keenly responsive to the senses of touch, smell, and taste, but these are of less general utility in ordinary everyday life.

The Deficient Sense

There are very few people who have an equally good memory for sights and for sounds; therefore it is necessary that the sense which is deficient should be developed. The natural tendency is to put all the work on the sense which seems to do it the more easily, and this works to the detriment of the other functions, which should be compelled to bear a share of the burden.     For instance, if you find it difficult to remember anything in writing or in print, try reading it aloud to yourself, taking note not only of the meaning of the words but also of their appearance, their relative position on the paper, and their actual sound. You will thus be sending to the brain a visual impression and an aural impression at the same time (both being physical impressions), and with them you can create a better mental impression of the meaning of what you are studying.

How to Remember Names and Faces

Look for a distinguishing mark, as well as try to get a general impression. People who pay attention and really look at the face will not forget that face.

Names by Sound: Faces by Sight

The great difficulty in remembering people’s names arises from the fact that the name is a “hearing” while the face is a “seeing.” We have little or no difficulty in remembering names that we are in the habit of seeing, especially when they are usually presented to our attention in immediate connection with the face to which they belong. The faces used in magazine advertisements, for instance, are always associated with the name. We are in the habit of seeing both together; they have been presented so often to the mind as ideas of equal strength, that they have been blended into one idea, and either the name or the face instantly recalls the other. Names of famous persons, which are continually before us in the newspapers, are easily remembered, because we have the visual memory of them to help us. We seldom forget the names of persons with whom we correspond, because we are familiar with the visual appearance of the written name, and it has gradually blended with the general, memory of the person to whom it belongs.

It is the names that we never see written or printed that we forget; the names of people just introduced to us, or whom we meet casually in society or business. Whenever you find yourself unable to recall the name of a person that you have met dozens of times, if you will think it over, you will usually discover that it is a person to whom you have never written, and whose name has never been to you anything but a sound.

Sound and Spelling

In order to bring the sight memory of a face and the sound memory of a name together, to establish some connection between them, so that one shall recall the other, concentrate upon paying attention to the name when you hear it. Ask how it is spelt and also pronounce it aloud, paying particular attention to the spelling and to any peculiarities that the name suggests.

Every time you think of person, be sure to recall the name at the same time, and mentally spell it. Every time you meet a person whom you know, recall the name, even if it is not necessary to address him or her by it; and, in recalling it try to get the visual memory of it, or spell it to yourself,

The most important thing is to pay attention to the name upon the first introduction. Many persons are singularly careless in this respect, and do not really hear the names. They are under the impression that it is impolite to show a desire to have the names repeated. This practice allows the “sight” impression of the person to be so much stronger than the “sound” impression of the name that the ideas do not unite. The stronger completely obliterates the weaker. In order to cure yourself of this habit, if you have contracted it, try for a while to get a stronger impression of names than of faces, when you meet people for the first time; and, above all, do not forget to turn the name into a visual memory if you can.

At fifty the memory for proper names begins to decline, but an effective remedy is found in carrying out the hints just given, and using proper names when speaking to or of the people concerned. Do not be content with such phrases as “Mr. What’s his Name.”

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What is knowledge?  It’s all the information that comes to us either through the senses or by reflection. Let’s look at knowledge that comes from sense activity. Note that your range of knowledge is largely determined by the range of your senses. If the senses of sight and hearing, for instance, are unresponsive, you will miss we half of life. The ideal of Pelmanism, in reference to the senses, is to be alive to external appeals.

Life and Response

You are a living person. You can grow. External facts like sunsets, lakes seen in the moonlight, the mist in the valley, and the song of the nightingale, can change the outlook of your soul, if you will only see and hear. The slogan of this lesson is: BE ALIVE

The Senses and Mental Efficiency

Begin by supposing that you have almost no sense power; that you cannot see or hear anything; that your senses of taste and touch and smell are only moderately developed.

Out of a Sense Prison

Then imagine that the sense of touch was fully restored to you, adding itself to those of taste and smell. You could then know a great deal more about external things, their shape, their weight, their heat, and their coldness. The mind would have a considerable increase in data about which to exercise its powers, but the complete absence of the powers of sight and hearing would form an insuperable barrier against any further advance. Should another sense suddenly come – hearing, for instance – to act in conjunction with the taste, smell and touch already working, the outside world would become more and more real; voices would bring language into being; and that would bring communion with others. Add still another sense, the most important of all, and the advent of sight would release you entirely from your “senseless” prison. You would come out into the normal state of ordinary human beings with senses alive to all the joys of social intercourse.

Sensation and Perception

It is possible to have sensations that do not immediately become perceptions; or, if they do, the perceptions are so weak that they fail to live beyond the life of the moment. Thus, if we hear a clock striking, the sound acts on the nerves of hearing, which in turn enable us to perceive the fact that the clock is chiming the hour. If, after paying no particular attention to the number of strokes, we ask ourselves “What hour did it strike?” it is sometimes possible to tell exactly the number of strokes by consulting the record in our subconscious. This record of sensations of sound is kept for a few moments, subconsciously, by the registering power of the mind; and although the striking of the clock was immediately perceived, full perception of the number of sounds was not instantaneous. But, for the bulk of daily experiences, it may be taken for granted that perception follows upon sensation with a rapidity that eludes the closest analysis. On the other hand, one may see and hear a great deal without comprehending it; and this vagueness of the life of sensation and perception is responsible, for much mind-wandering and bad memory.

Priority of Sight and Hearing

It has been said that taste and  smell are inferior to the other senses, because they introduce us to a smaller range of interests; and that they are not so certain on account of their relative nature. For instance, a moderately sweet drink is hardly sweet at all if we have just partaken of a very sweet drink; and there is apt to be confusion between smell and taste. You have possibly heard somebody say, “This tastes like musk smells.”  For all ordinary purposes, as well as for business life, sight, and hearing, and touch, are the most important senses, and of these we should place sight and hearing ahead of touch, and of sight and hearing we should place sight first.

The Value of Efficient Senses

When sensations are weak or inaccurate, our knowledge also will be weak and inaccurate, from which it follows that memory also will be confused; therefore a good memory depends on good knowledge, and good knowledge depends on good sensations and perceptions.

Professional Values

While one of the benefits of sense training is cultural – artists and writers have their senses wide open to capture information for their art. The second benefit of having trained senses is professional.

The result may not be an immediate and striking originality, but your knowledge will be delivered with confidence because you learned it firsthand. It will also be more intimate knowledge and ought to lead you eventually to some type of superiority.

The Value of Observation

The importance of accuracy in observation is illustrated by the manner in which many of the greatest discoveries in science and industry have been made. We all know the story of Newton and the falling apple. Those who are familiar with astronomy know that it was the observation of certain unaccountable eccentricities in the movement of Uranus that led to the conclusion there must be another planet somewhere in the solar, system, and Neptune was located, and named. It was the observation of the iridescent rays in a pile of refuse outside an oil refinery that led to the discovery of the possibilities of coal-tar dyes, and many of the most valuable by-products of petroleum. In the realm of industry and mechanics, who has not read the story of Watt, who observed that when he held a teaspoon in front of the spout of a kettle, the vapor forced it backward in spite of his effort to hold it still? From that hint he developed the steam engine.

The Artist as Observer

An illustration of the trained eye is furnished by Leonardo da Vinci in his “Treatise on Painting” (London edition 1877). To a young man of artistic susceptibilities, he says that “in order to acquire a true notion of the form of things be must begin by studying the parts which compose them, and not pass to a second till he has well stored his memory and sufficiently practiced the first; otherwise he loses his time, and will most certainly protract his studies.” Leonardo then gives some of his own observations, one of which shows that the cartilage which raises the nose in the middle of the face, varies in eight different ways.

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The Cost of Forgetfulness

Forgetfulness is both irritating and costly in any sphere of life, and this is particularly true in the world of business. If we are to remember a thing at the right time, we need more than a good memory; we need a system to handle our attention. There is no man who has no memory at all; there are thousands who have poor memories, a greater number who have fair memories, but the good and the excellent are not so plentiful.

EXERCISES

Exercise VI

When next you take a walk, resolve to notice as much as you can of the things that are in any degree unusual. You will, of course, see much that is familiar, the same kind of people wearing the same kind of clothes, and hear them using the same kind of talk; but keep your eyes and ears open for anything that is out of the common. Deliberately search for sights and sounds with an element of newness to you. When you have returned from your walk, hastily go over in your mind the route you took, then begin your memory exercise by starting at the end of your journey and going backward over the ground all the way to the beginning. This method of the return journey is a little difficult at first, but it is one of the finest mental exercises ever prescribed. You are developing your powers of observation; you are also training your concentration, memory, and reproductive imagination. If during the process of reconstructing your journey from the end to the beginning, you observe weak connections, places where recollection is difficult, study those weaknesses very closely, because they are bound to reveal memory defects which call for attention.

Exercise VII

The use of pen and pencil in recording observations is an excellent training in both speed and accuracy. The next time you visit a friend’s house, or the room of any building to which you are a stranger, or even the inside of a shop where you make a purchase, take two glances round the room, and when you get home take four sheets of paper and by means of rough designs or squares indicate what you can remember of the pictures on the walls. On a fifth sheet, put down the position of the furniture of the room and indicate the number of tables, chairs, and other articles. This can be made not only mentally profitable but socially fascinating. The members of a party can be provided with the proper materials, and allowed a certain time in which to look round a room. Marks can be awarded for accuracy, and if need be, a prize can be given to the winner.

Exercise VIII

The aim of this exercise is two-fold, first, to discover the limits of your ear memory; next, to train that memory until its efficiency is greatly increased.

Read one line of words aloud, allowing one second for each word. Then close your eyes and repeat from memory. If you can get someone to call them off for you so much the better.

1. Tree, Fig, Card, Ice.

2. Emboss, Embalm, Day, Joy.

3. Care, Carry, Fustian, Ring.

4. Don’t, Subaltern, Gibraltar, Fix.

5. Marry, Cost-accounts, relay, women.

Keep an account of the number of your mistakes for your own records.

We now come to longer lines of words. These are naturally more difficult than the shorter ones, and if, at first, there are more “slips” in recalling them, it should be remembered that practice soon develops more power. Ear memory work is excellent training for conversation in foreign languages. Waitresses who can take 10 verbal orders for food, and place it before the right people, have acquired good ear-memories.

1. Tub, Mill, Mix, Cigar, Paper.

2. Scrap, Room, Cork, Fat, Job, Duke.

3. Tube, Joss, Home, China, Fix, Star, Ham.

4. Skill, Teaser, Fob, Jay, Tobacco, Simply, Toil, Jam.

The way in which you should report results is as follows:

“In In the first list I had . . . . right and .. . . wrong.

“In the second list I had . . . . right and . . . . wrong.        ‘

“Wrong” means either an incorrect word, a word in the wrong place, or inability to recall a word.

Exercise IX

Take a walk and sit down. Listen to the sounds you can hear. From what direction do they come? How many are there, and what is the difference between them? Afterward, when reading nature descriptions, compare your knowledge of sounds with that of the author. If you cannot easily get into the country adapt the exercise to the sounds of the city. Repeat these exercises as opportunity serves but endeavor to preserve regularity.

DON’TS

I. Don’t be a grumbler. The man with an everlasting grouch usually grieves his chances out of existence.

2. Don’t aim too high, but aim high enough. Adjust your ambition to your abilities, and your ambition will grow accordingly.

3. Don’t bewail your lot. Instead of thus wasting your energy, use it to find a better position, or in other ways to enlarge your interests.

4. Don’t be afraid of being laughed at.

5. Don’t fail to see that the “Don’ts” just urged upon you are directly concerned with the development of mental efficiency.

6. Don’t be content with a low ideal. Give it an elevation.

DO THIS

1. Accustom your mind to the fact that the working methods of the Pelman Institute are based on long years of experience, and on a vast expenditure of money in experimental research of all kinds.

2. You may not always see how we are going to help you, but proceed confidently, and the whole plan will become plain.

3. There is a loss and a gain in every step forward. Something must be left behind. The loss is not important if you secure the gain: so know clearly what you want, then begin the task, cheerily.

4. Draw up your scale of values, the things of most worth. Among these are health of body and mind; friends; books; adequate money; inward peace; service to others.

5. To obtain these values you must work; they seldom come of their own accord. Self-expression is the chief method of attraction: it may just as easily attract the confidence of the moneyed man as that of the philosopher.

6. It has been said that all things work together for good. They do in the mental world; hence psycho-synthesis. Aim at the harmony of all functions both of the body and of the mind.

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All the Pelmanism in the world cannot work on its own. To make any of this work, you will have to examine yourself closely, to turn your attention inward and use the searchlight of introspection. Some people are afraid of introspection. So are we – when it is a habit.

To encourage habitual introspection is the last thing we desire. The whole trend of the lesson is toward an outside interest, an interest where one is not conscious of self. Let’s take a side step here and say a word about the evil of self-consciousness. Take a simple illustration. You are suddenly called upon to second a vote of thanks, or to say a few rambling words at a dinner. You are not accustomed to speech-making, and become unpleasantly self-conscious instead of thinking only about the subject and the occasion. Perhaps one hundred and twenty pairs of eyes look at you and you feel hypnotized. You want to speak well, and in order to estimate your success you feel obliged to listen to yourself as you talk. There comes a moment when these two activities of speaking and listening do not run side by side; you allow the listening too much scope and the speaking fails to get its due: that is the moment when a speaker loses the thread of his remarks and comes to a full stop.

Now, if you can forget yourself in the subject and the occasion, in other words speak without listening critically, you will find yourself much more fluent. We have known self-conscious people who have delivered thrilling speeches, the reason being that they were supremely anxious to advocate the claims of a particular mission that was very close to their hearts; and this desire completely overcame the habit of thinking of self. They forgot everything in the passion of the moment, and self was lost in the glow and fervor of speaking for a great cause.

Self Consciousness

Self-consciousness is often temperamental, for even a very self-confident man may be painfully embarrassed if suddenly called upon to speak before an audience. People who are naturally shy and reserved have a tendency to live a good deal within themselves, and being sensitive, the rough and tumble of everyday life, the chaff and the joking, the give and take of social existence, does not attract them. Indeed such people avoid everything that would jar their inward peace. Whether they know it or not, they must be told that there is a little vanity in their attitude. However much they shrink from publicity it is not all due to fear. They should realize that a healthy balance of life requires us to come out of our reserve, otherwise we become so self-conscious that we stand in our own light, hinder our progress, and increase other people’s pity toward us. The one way to do this is to develop an interest, form a plan for carrying it out and concentrate upon it.

Self-Examination

To return to introspection – occasional practice of it for a definite purpose is the chief method of self-knowledge. For instance, here is a practical question: “Do you possess energy-impelling force?”  To test yourself once, and thoroughly, on that basis, is to obtain encouragement if you can say “Yes”: illumination and guidance if you have to say “No.”

Let us take a few negative answers.

(1) “No. No. No energy. I’m like an icicle. I am cold, lacking in broad sympathies, frigid, and incapable of enthusiasm.”

(2) “I have some energy, but only as a routinist. I allow others to do my thinking. I render obedience because I never had the force to lead. I am essentially an employed person.”

(3) “Yes, I’ve got energy for short periods. But I fizz and foam with enthusiasm for awhile, then fall as flat as water.”

There is more hope for those who thus know themselves than for those who have never faced an honest self-analysis. But self-examination only works if we take steps to use what we learn about ourselves. If we don’t, that can be fatal. The courage demanded in self-examination is to “see all and not to be afraid”; and it should be followed by equal courage in setting your mental house in order.

Questions for Self Drill

 (a) Are you thoroughly sound physically? If not, are you taking suitable steps for the improvement of health? Do you find that the knowledge of a weakness stimulates you to fresh energy in order to compensate for the defect? Is this true of mental as well as physical defects?

(b) Have you ever examined your mental qualities in comparison with those of other people, for whose success – intellectual, social, or otherwise – you may have had an occasional pang of envy? If so, with what result?

(c) What were the most successful and happy periods of your life? Do your best and most progressive periods synchronize with your best health periods?

(d) Can you now reproduce the mental and other conditions of those periods in order to obtain similar results?

(e) If there have been no such periods, do you blame yourself? If not, can you blame anyone else, fairly?

(f) Have you discovered what, for yourself, is the best hour for calm reflection, the sort of reflection that leads to advantageous action?

(g) Draw up a list of your good qualities, and those which you would classify as not so good.

(h) What is your remote or distant aim, also your more immediate aim?

(i) Are you too sensitive, too retiring? If so, do you not lose much in consequence?

(j) Have you proved the truth of the statement that for success in anything, the usual program is continuously hard work?       -

(k) Do you welcome responsibility or shirk it?

(l) Do you realize how the acceptance of responsibility contributes to the development, of mind and the making of character?

(m) Do you perform any kind of work for others where financial reward is out of the question? How long is it since you did something really kind and generous?

(n) Have you made the production of new ideas a definite aim? or have you been content to accept other people’s ideas with a “Thank you” for saving you the trouble?

(o) Do you waste energy by imagining misfortunes and how you would meet them; or by going through imaginary battles with your enemies; or by thinking pessimistic thoughts on general lines?

(p) If the use of these Self-Drill questions has depressed you, is it not because they have shown you where your weakness lies? Is not that a hopeful thing, inasmuch as you can begin at once to provide a remedy?

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“How can you find a goal in life and form a plan of action?” First – what is a goal? It does not necessarily mean a great mission; it may mean no more than doing well, or doing better, the work you are doing now. A miner, earning good wages, may believe that he has no aim in life; for getting coal is merely work, whereas an aim, he thinks, is a vast ambition: such as to own a mine or run for Congress. He may be right or wrong, but it is practical wisdom to have an immediate purpose as well as a distant one; and in the miner’s case the obtaining of a sound education should be the primary object of life. Aims do not have to be dizzy ambitions. The value of a goal is not in its height so much as in its intensity. It can be devastating to aim too high and fail. However, when one purpose has been achieved it is easy to form another. A small success brings experience and offers the ability to adapt your decisions to your abilities. To know your limitations and possibilities is half-way to success. There are thousands whose general future is settled, but who have no particular interest beyond their daily round and common tasks. Some of them look at their work as a necessary labor, but also as a nuisance; and they live their real life at home among books, or hobbies, or gardening. Such people often live long, happy and useful lives, but it cannot always be said that they have made the best of their possibilities. If the business fails or hard times come, they frequently pass through the deep waters of suffering, experiences which a true mental attitude towards work would either have spared them altogether, or have enabled them to endure with greater stoicism.

When Purpose Is “Discovered”

Sometimes our life purpose only becomes clear to us after we’ve tried a number of different things. We can be restless and then strike something that suits us. We’re good at it and we enjoy it.

Self-Realization

If you are not sure yet what your goal is, don’t feel hopeless. If you know what you want, Pelmanism will promote every interest you have at heart. If you do not know what you want, you at least know that the needed knowledge will come, and that, for the present, you can go forward full of expectancy. Forget the pessimism which tempts you to believe that the world is against you. Don’t be cycnical. Take yourself in hand and resolve that in spite of every difficulty you will arrive, not in the limelight of public opinion, but in the sense of self-realization.

Failure and Half-Success

Many people, towards the end, are obliged to say: “I have wasted my time on unessentials.”  “I have missed the substance and gained the shadow.” “I have allowed inferior men to leave me behind.” “I have not come up to the expectations of my friends and have rejoiced my enemies.” “I have sought the easy line in all things.” “I have not quite failed but my success has been insignificant.” It is not too late to arrange a plan of life which will make such confessions impossible in your case. But begin the arranging now. Don’t lose a moment.

Causes of Aimless Lives

(a) An absence of training in early initiative. (b) A shy and reserved temperament, predisposing to inaction. (c) The after effects of nervous illnesses. (d) A native changeability of disposition, no power of concentrated effort. (e) Weakness of will, causing disinclination to effort. (f) Pessimism; sometimes arising out of a deep study of one aspect of life, which has culminated in too many negatives. (g) Fatalism; which regards the individual as the helpless victim of circumstances, as a point upon which forces converge; whereas he is himself a force capable of resisting, restraining, compelling.

Decision vs. Indecision

35. Most of us have to earn a living and sometime this means we get round pegs in square holes. But these people usually have one great advantage mentally: they know what they want. The other people don’t; they are undecided. Now the round pegs can very often get out of the square holes if they play their part with caution and skill. In their leisure time they can prepare themselves for new work and new positions, and, when ready, can migrate and better themselves. This question of what a person shall do is personal; outsiders can advise on technical points but without a true science of life, or rather in the present undeveloped condition of vocational psychology, each individual must make up his or her mind and act on that initiative. This is a good thing.

Testing an Aim

You can gauge the quality of an aim by asking the following questions: 1. Is its achievement desirable? 2. Is it possible or impossible? 3. Is it possible or impossible to me? 4. What are the obstacles? 5. Can they be surmounted? 6. Will victory be too costly? 7. Can I find any happiness in it if I fail?

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The Folly of Overworking

Something else about having a clear goal…your aim can be clear, definite and intense, but too much for you. Your aim and the time you have available have to be in synch.

To have no aim is to drift; to have too many aims is to dissipate energy.

The law of Interest is too clear to be misunderstood. The more the interest, the more the attention. The more the attention, the deeper the interest. And as attention in the form of concentration means all the difference between great results and none at all, the value of interest is fully demonstrated. Interest begets Purpose, and Purpose begets Concentration.

Interest and Memory

(c). The pursuit of a Purpose develops Recollective Ability.

Look back in your life and ask yourself: What are the thoughts and things that I remember most vividly? You will find they are the thoughts and things happy or unhappy that were emotionally experienced.

Memory and Emotion

We once interviewed a man of twenty-five who complained of weak memory for business matters, such as posting letters, telephone messages, dates, and orders: but we found he knew practically everything about baseball; dates of matches, names of teams, and professionals, the exact results of play. About these matters he was a walking encyclopedia. His heart was in baseball, not in business; and where your heart is there is your memory also.

Interest and Ideation

(d) There is an increase in the fertility of Ideas

If you study the records of genius, in almost every case you will find that the originalities and discoveries of great men have been due to this impulse, feeling, emotion (call it what you will) that passes easily from a state of interest into a plan of action. Let one instance suffice. Finsen, the celebrated lightcure specialist, saw a cat reclining lazily, on a roof, in the genial sunshine. The shadow from a neighboring building reached the cat and it moved into the sunshine again. It repeated the process several times. Finsen became interested and his interest deepened and widened with attention to the subject. He knew the cat must have received some benefit from the light and heat, but how and why? At last he felt himself on the track of a great discovery, and eventually his new ideas found expression in the famous Finsen cure. You will perhaps say: Is not this a case where attention developed interest rather than the other way about? No; Finsen became interested in the movements of the cat, and this interest caused a concentration on the why and wherefore of the whole affair. We shall later on deal with the interest that springs out of attention.

Genius and Concentration

Attention, reflection, energy, mental-industry – use any term you will – prepares the conditions of originality. The new idea is the offspring of the subconscious sphere of intellect. That is why the new idea “comes”;   it makes its appearance suddenly, when, perhaps, the mind is engaged on something quite different. Still, the value of attention is not diminished: rather it is increased.

The Growth of Ideas

15. With your powers of interest working at a high but not abnormal pressure, your ideas will grow in number and quality, because you will always be inquiring into the origins and relationships of your business, profession, or calling, as well as into those that are external to it.

Stimulus

Why are you sometimes minus ideas? There are two reasons. A stagnant period, long or short, nearly always follows a creative period; a season of mental plenty is succeeded by one of comparative poverty.

That is intellectual rhythm. But the more serious reason is this: that the fires of interest have died down. You have lost force. Attention, generally, is slacker. Concentration weakens. Results are fewer.

The cure is obvious; increase the stimulus and ideas will come. The law of stimulus has been formulated in the following words: “The efficiency of a feeling, as a motive power, is determined by its intensity and duration.”

Your interest must be permanent and it must be strong; otherwise you gain nothing; you are a changeable person, one week enthusiastic about this or that, and the next week as cold as ice. Your interest, though permanent, is lukewarm – there is no steam behind it, no force – what the man in the street describes as “no ginger.”

Interest and Self-Confidence

(e) Interest-power, when expressed in action, is one of the bases of complete self-confidence.

Self-confidence is nothing more than trust in your own strength, or powers; relying on the correctness of your own judgment, or the competence of your own powers.

How Temperament Affects Us

Temperament, therefore, often stands in the way of a certain kind of progress, especially in circumstances where competition rules.       It often happens that the cleverest men are in the second and third positions and the average men in the first. But these average men are superior in one particular: they are of an energetic and self-confident disposition.   

As to whether you should follow your temperament, or adjust it to your needs – that is a question which no one can decide yourself.

The Place of Knowledge in Self-Confidence

Now your interest may be, probably is, much less ambitious than the abolition of a great evil; but if it is intense, it will surely find opportunities of expression; and even if your temperament is an obstacle, changes will occur tending to reduce the opposition, perhaps to banish it altogether. In this way self-confidence is developed. You know your subject, or you are getting to know it; and the natural desire to hold back is giving way to experience. Let there be no mistake. If you really resolve to master a timid disposition, you can. How is it to be done? By arousing some Feeling in the form of Desire, and by expressing it in. some definite aim.

Interest and Will-Power

There is a final benefit to be considered.

(f) Interest increases Will-Power.

The thing you want to do with all your heart, because you believe it is a good thing, advantageous to you and to others, is the thing about which you will have no difficulty as to action. Your enthusiasm carries you through. If you find you have to work early and late for a month, you will do it.

This fact is one of the simplicities of mental life, but its importance is not often realized. Those men who find themselves languid, indifferent, lazy or unresponsive are usually men without an interest, therefore without a purpose; without concentration and without will. So if you one day feel that your Will is weak, despite good health and the absence of anxiety, just go back to your real purpose in living; examine it to see whether it still retains its original compelling force. Are you as eager as you were? Or has life lost its vim? In most instances it will be found that weak Will is due to loss of impetus or stimulus; desire has decreased; concentration is not so strong. All these things are organically connected, and although there are other factors which cannot be ignored, the chief factor is Interest.

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This starts Lesson No. 2 which is considered one of the most vital lessons of the course. Make this part of your consciousness. Where a serious decision must be made about your goals in life, think about it long and carefully.

Ask yourself “What is my object in life?” The question is fundamental because it concerns your mental efficiency.

In order to get the best out of yourself you must have an aim in life: not a general aim, but a particular aim: not a mere desire to be successful in everything that you undertake, but a definite purpose to accomplish a definite end. There are many reasons for this, and chief among them is that without a proper plan of life your mental ability will not be developed.

Consciousness of Aim

An aim, or purpose, implies that you are moved by a specific desire or feeling; to be an artist, to develop a useful invention, to write the great American novel, or perhaps to make a name for yourself in politics. In your mind there must be a clear idea, which means that your intellectual powers are intimately concerned with your aim, but the idea is so emotional that it a feeling rather than a thought. There is more heart in it than head. You are driven by this aim.

The significance of feeling, as a mental function, becomes evident when it is realized that a strong desire to achieve, to attain, to master, to conquer, is the basis of every plan of life.

What is this feeling? In a general sense it is interest. Take games as an illustration. Why do you stand for hours watching a football game? Because you are interested in the game and want your side to win. Why do people devote two evenings a week to physical drill, or to “trapshooting,” to languages or to altruism? Simply because they have an interest in these things. Other men have other interests and act accordingly. The tragic thing is to have no interest at all. It spells mental decay, unhappiness, and often disaster.

If you will read the biographies of people of thought and action, you will find that in every case the motive power was interest; and it manifested itself in two ways: (a) It had an end in view, and (b) it devised means for attaining that end. They were ambitious. Do not imagine that only Emperors with world-designs are ambitious, or Oil and Railway magnates, or would-be Senators. We are all ambitious: or we ought to be—so long as our ambitions are just.

The Forward Look

All progressive men and women feel this inward something urging them forward. They have ideals to aim at; purposes to be fulfilled; ends to be achieved. In some cases it is the writing of a book; in others the possession of a world-wide business; in others, again, it is the more modest aim to secure a decent pension for their old age. A few will look forward to becoming amateur champions in golf or billiards.

Interest and Mental Synthesis

Interest and aim help you in the development of your mental ability. (a) First: they give the mind unity of action.

This is so obvious that it hardly needs attention, and yet its importance is often overlooked. Without a purpose we are sure to be drifters – going with the stream. We work because we must, but when work is over we look round for something to pass the time. Life has no centre. We are without a policy or a plan. A wish is not an aim. The effect is plain to the seeing eye: our abilities lose their edge: and there comes a day when we realize that we are not what we once were, and then we get a glimpse of what we might have been.

Interest and Concentration

(b) The effort to realize a purpose develops one of the specific functions of the mind, CONCENTRATION.

Without concentration, our minds wander and destroy our ability to focus on our aim in life. Mind-wandering may be overcome by reconstructing your inner life on a new basis of desire, and partly by practice. Set a goal for yourself. It may be difficult at first to work up interest in meeting this goal, but if you do, it much easier to concentrate your attention. You will set up a mental habit, and instead of your thoughts flitting here and there, they will be focused on ways and means of meeting your goal.

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Exercise  1

We need vivid impressions to build sound knowledge and reliable memory. Therefore in mental training we need to educate the powers through which most of our information comes, namely, sight and hearing.

Take a sheet of paper and write down the list of the names of three of your friends — both sexes. Opposite each name write (a) the color of the eyes, (b) the nature of the complexion, (c) the manner of wearing the hair, and (d) in the case of men, the absence or presence of beard and moustache. (e) Add also a note as to any particular article of clothing worn on the last occasion you saw the person concerned.

Some people find an exercise of this kind very easy; they are naturally acute observers; others find it rather difficult; their powers need training. It is the object of this exercise to discover the extent to which you observe people and things — nothing more.

Practice it occasionally throughout the course in order to see how you are developing in observational power.

Exercise 2

Go some place where sense appeals are possible, and write down what you see, hear, or otherwise experience. It can be anywhere and it can be something like this: “I heard a train whistle, a motor car honked in the distance. Saw a swallow fly past the window. Heard a strange sound several times, but could not identify it. Counted the shades of green in the foliage. There were five.”

Exercise 3

Deal out four playing cards, face downward, side by side. Turn up the first and note what it is, replacing it face downward. Repeat the process with the three other cards, then after a few minutes, try to recall the four in order. When you can do this correctly, experiment with five cards, gradually increasing the number. It is possible to recall a very large number if you continue to repeat mentally the cards you use from the first.

Work on one or two of these simple exercises occasionally, until you feel you are acquiring greater speed and accuracy in them, but do not hold up your work with other parts of the course Press on.

Exercise 4

It is interesting and useful to know at what distance removed from you the ticking of a watch can be heard. Deafness is a matter of degree, and often of inattention. Sometimes minor defects in hearing, quite remediable in their early stages, are allowed to develop unnoticed. If possible, have your sight and hearing tested. Acuteness of hearing can be cultivated; and it is worth the trouble to increase by inches the distance between you and the watch, so as to determine the ratio of improvement. Thus, if on a first attempt you can hear a watch ticking on a table five yards off, stand a foot farther away, then another foot, and so on until you fail to hear the sound. Use the same watch always, and in the same place if possible.

To Come

When there is a connection between two ideas, or between the words representing two ideas, the connection is based on certain methods grouped under the general heading of association. Later on we will look at ways to master association to the point where you will be able to write down 1,000 or more words, read them over once, and then be able to repeat the whole list from beginning to end or from the end to the beginning.

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Impression, Retention, Recollection

There are three stages to memory— impression, retention and recollection, and if any one of these three factors is impaired, the memory is in a corresponding degree defective. We’ve been talking a lot about memory but since it forms a groundwork upon which much of your future success will be built, we have to really grasp how important it is. So let’s look at the three components:

• Impressions are of two kinds; those coming to the mind from outside; and those arising within the mind itself, such as thought and of imagination. The more you consider an idea that originates in your mind, it is good exercise to trace the train of thought that led up to it. Ask yourself: “Why did that idea occur to me? How did it come?”
• Retention is physiological, and beyond your control. Whenr a vivid impression is made, permanent retention is practically assured. Of course, if no impression has been made upon the brain, no impression can be retained. When people say they have “forgotten,” they frequently suppose that their retentive power has broken down. The failure, however, is not in the retentive power, but in the third stage, which is the power of recollection.
• Recollection is the name given to the revival of an impression made upon the brain and retained by it. Frequently recollection is spoken of as if it were synonymous with “memory,”   but in reality recollection is only the third and final stage of the complete process. Facility in recollection depends primarily upon the intensity of the first impression. Secondly, it depends upon certain principles of association which will be explained in a later lesson.

So far we’ve been dealing with what is essentially a map of the whole course.  These sections are just building blocks. Only by a realization of yourself can you attain success.

Remember

1. Don’t admit you are too old. Mental age is a matter of training.

2. Don’t expect to become mentally efficient by means of one lesson. There is some work ahead of you.

3. Don’t skip sections.

4. You may not see immediately how each lesson can be psycho-synthetic, but you will realize it later. Go through the sections so far, for instance, and try to discover any mental power that has been neglected by you.

5. Emphasize the personal element. Tell yourself that the Pelman system has a message for you; also a discipline, an illumination, and a deliverance from error.

6. “I have a future with promise in it.” Turn that phrase over in your mind. It is true enough, for most people at any rate, but we want you to feel it.

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