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A champion prizefighter says that he does not train for his contests. “The weight question,” he declares, “is the least of my troubles. I can make 133 pounds with ease, and while it is not generally known to the public, I will get down to this weight by thinking about making it. I get rid of flesh by always keeping in mind that I must make the weight. I just keep telling myself that I’ve got to get down to the notch. The articles leave nothing for me to do but to be at weight, and I will continue to keep this in mind.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-great-awakening">A Great Awakening</h2>



The famous experiments of Professor W.G. Anderson of Yale University prove that the strength of muscles can be increased immensely by mental action alone, without any physical exercise whatsoever.



We hear a great deal about <a href="https://neurosciencenews.com/placebo-effect-exercise-23106/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the power of the mind</a> over the body. Why, the whole secret of life is wrapped up in it…. The prophet, the poet, the sage, from earliest times, have felt and recognized it.



“Be ye transformed by the renewing power of your mind,” [Apostle Paul wrote in the Book of Romans]. “’Tis the mind that makes the body rich,” says Shakespeare [in <a href="https://amzn.to/43j3Qc4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Taming of the Shrew</a>]. “What we commonly call man,” writes Emerson [in <a href="https://amzn.to/3OPo2Og" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Over-Soul</a>], “the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not re­spect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.”



Today, even the prizefighter—the uneducated as well as the educated, the man who lives on the animal plane even as the man who lives on the spiritual plane—in fact, all sorts of people, are beginning to see that there is some tremendous force back of the flesh which they do not understand. The rapid growth of the metaphysical movement shows how actively this idea of man’s hidden power is working in the minds of all classes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mind and Body Building</h2>



Some of our best physicians, who only a few years ago ridiculed mental healing, are beginning to adopt the principle—so far as they know how—in their practice: especially the power of suggestion. They are finding that their patients are often more <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/10-clever-tricks-to-trigger-positive-emotions/">affected by mental medicine</a>—by their calls, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/a-helping-hand-how-high-fives-with-your-reflection-can-teach-you-self-compassion/">their encouragement and good cheer</a>—than by their pills. They are finding, too, that the mental attitude of the patient has everything to do with the effect of the disease, that it often prove the turning point in a crisis. The result of <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-you-have-to-take-control-of-your-thoughts/">all this mental influence</a> is a very marked falling off in the use of drugs…. It is now well known that scores of eminent physicians employ metaphysical healing in their own families and often for themselves. Even the regular medical schools are taking up the subject of mental medicine in their lecture courses.



Hampered as this great movement still is by the errors and extrav­agances of overzealous followers—and also by the fraud of charlatans, who take advantage of the opportunities it offers to impose on the cred­ulous and ignorant—there is no doubt that the basic principle of this metaphysical movement has opened up many possibilities of mind build­ing, character building, body building and even business building, which are destined to bring untold blessings to the world.



We are beginning to see that we can renew our bodies by renewing our thoughts; change our bodies by changing our thoughts; that by holding the thought of what we wish to become, we can become what we desire. Instead of being the victims of fate, we can order our fate; we can largely determine what it shall be. Our destiny <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/if-you-want-to-change-your-life-change-what-you-think/">changes with our thought</a>. We shall become <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-power-of-visualization/">what we wish to become</a> when our habitual thought corresponds with the desire.



“Anyone may go into the business of building his own mind for an hour each day, calling up pleasant memories and ideas,” [Professor Elmer Gates said]. “Let him summon feelings of benevolence and unselfishness, making this a regular exercise like swinging dumbbells. Let him gradually increase the time devoted to these physical gymnastics until it reaches 60 or 90 minutes per diem. At the end of a month he will find the change in himself surprising. The alteration will be apparent in his actions and thoughts. It will have registered in the cell struc­ture of his brain.”&nbsp;



This excerpt has been edited for length and clarity.



This article originally appeared in the May/June 2023 <a href="https://store.success.com/by-media/success-magazine-may-june-2023-jairek-robbins.html">issue of SUCCESS magazine</a>. Photo courtesy of SUCCESS magazine.

Explore the mind-body connection: When mental health and attitude are positive, your physical health can have better outcomes.

Explore the mind-body connection: When mental health and attitude are positive, your physical health can have better outcomes. | SUCCESS

From the Archives: The Power of the Mind Over the Body

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From the Archives: The Mind-Body Connection | SUCCESS

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Marden was an American author and founder of SUCCESS magazine.

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Orison Swett Marden

Money

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I know a rich man who has become such a slave to the habit of economizing, formed when he was trying to get a start in the world, that he has not been able to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-change-your-habits/">break away from it</a>. He will very often lose a dollar’s worth of valuable time trying to save a dime.



He goes through his home and turns the gas down so low that it is almost impossible to get around without stumbling over chairs. This man, though now wealthy, tears off the unused half-sheets of letters and cuts out the backs of envelopes for scribbling paper. He is constantly spending time trying to save little things.



He carries the same spirit in his business. He makes his employees save strings from bundles as a matter of princi­ple, even if it takes twice as much time as the string is worth, and prac­tices all sorts of trifling economics equally foolish.



<h2 id="h-stinginess-and-parsimony-are-not-real-economy">Stinginess and Parsimony Are Not Real Economy</h2>



True economy is not stinginess or meanness. True economy, from the broadest standpoint, means <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/3-ways-to-spend-your-money-wisely/">the wisest expenditure</a> of what we have. It is not a good thing to save a nickel at the expenditure of 25 cents’ worth of time.



Comparatively few people have a healthy view of what real saving or economy means. I have seen a lady spoil a pair of fine gloves trying to rescue a nickel from a mud puddle. Several people have been run over by streetcars or teams in New York while trying to rescue a dropped package, a hat, an umbrella or a cane.



I know a young man who has lost many opportunities for advance­ment, and a large amount of business, by false economy in dress and smallness regarding expenditures. He believes that a suit of clothes and a necktie should be worn until they are threadbare. He would never think of inviting a customer or a prospective customer to a luncheon, or of offering to pay his car fare (if he happened to be traveling with him). He has such a reputation for being stingy, even to meanness, that people do not like to do business with him. False economy has cost this man very dear.



No one can afford to transact important business when they are not in prime condition, and it pays one in health and in comfort, as well as financially, to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/what-good-self-care-looks-like/">be very good to oneself</a>, especially when health and a clear brain are our best capital.



<h2>The Expensive Is Often the Cheapest</h2>



Bargain hunters are often victims of false economy. They buy, because they are cheap, a great many things they do not actually need. Then, they will tell you how much they have saved. If they would reckon up what they have expended in a year, they would generally find that they have spent more than if they had only bought what they actually wanted, when they needed it, and had paid the regular price for it.



Many people have a mania for attending auc­tions and buying all sorts of [things] that do not match anything else they have. The result is that their homes are veritable nightmares as to taste and fitness of things. In addition, their search for a bargain means that they never get the first, best wear of anything. These secondhand things are often just on the point of giving out and constantly need repairing. Beds break down, legs come off bureaus, castors are always coming out and something is going to pieces all the time. This foolish buying is the worst kind of extravagance. Quality and durability should be the first considerations in buying anything for constant use. Yet, many people keep themselves poor by buying cheap articles that do not last.



<h2>Good Quality Is the First Requisite</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized"><img src="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/from-the-archives-penny-pains-1024x1024.png" alt="" class="wp-image-66897" width="512" height="512"/></figure>



No greater delusion ever entered a businessman’s head than that cheap labor is economy. Trying to cut the payroll down to the lowest possible dollar has ruined many a concern. Business owners who have been most successful have found that the best workers, like the best materials, are the cheapest in the end. The breakage, the damage, the losses, the expensive blunders, the injury to merchandise, the loss of customers resulting from cheap labor are not compensated for by low wages.



Anyone who tries to get superior results from inferior methods, from cheapness in quality of material or service, deludes themselves. Cheap labor means cheap products and a cheapened reputation. lt means infe­riority all along the line. The institution run by cheap help is cheapened and means a cheaper patronage.



<h2>When Saving Money Means Losing Health</h2>



Some people never get out of the world of pennies into the world of dollars. They work so hard to save the cents that they lose the dollars and the larger growth—the richer experience and the better opportunity. Everywhere, we see people wearing seedy, shabby clothes; stopping at cheap, noisy hotels or boarding houses; and sleeping on uncomfortable beds. They ride for days in cramped positions in day coaches in order to save the price of a parlor-car chair or a Pullman seat, sitting up all night to save the expense of a sleeper. All these are economies that cost too much for those who can possibly afford better.



If someone is going to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/we-all-have-the-same-24-hours-heres-how-to-make-the-most-of-them/">do their best work</a>, they must keep up their mental and physical standards. They must keep a clear brain and level head, and be able to think vigorously. They cannot think effectively without pure blood, and that requires good food, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-new-secrets-of-perfect-sleep/">refreshing sleep</a> and cheerful recreation.



Of course, we realize that those who haven’t the money cannot always do that which will contribute to their highest comfort and effi­ciency, but most people overestimate the value of a dollar in comparison with their physical well-being. Power is the goal of the highest ambition. Therefore, anything which will add to one’s power, no matter how much it costs, is worth its price if it is within possible reach.&nbsp;



This article originally appeared in the November 1906 issue and was republished in the <a href="https://store.success.com/by-media/success-magazine-nov-dec-2022-sophia-bush-and-nia-batts.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">November/December 2022</a> issue of SUCCESS magazine.

True economy is not stinginess or meanness. True economy, from the broadest standpoint, means the wisest expenditure of what we have.

True economy is not stinginess or meanness. True economy, from the broadest standpoint, means the wisest expenditure of what we have. | SUCCESS

From the Archives: The Ultimate Cost of Penny-Pinching

From the Archives: The Ultimate Cost of Penny-Pinching | SUCCESS

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From the Archives: What It Means to Be a Precedent Breaker

Business &amp; Branding

Business &amp; Branding Archives

Stay ahead in business: strategies and insights for success

Editor’s Note: In 2022, SUCCESS celebrates 125 years as a magazine. Since its inception, it has stayed true to its purpose: to provide its readers the tools, the inspiration and the recipe for improving their lives. Each issue, you’ll get a glimpse at that storied past, which highlights one important point: The world changes, but the tools of self-improvement are constant. This piece, originally published in July 1909, has been edited for length, clarity and style.



“How is it, I should like to ask,” said an indignant member of the Harvard University medical faculty, at one of its meetings, some forty years ago, “that after eighty years in which this faculty has been managing its own affairs, and doing it well, it is now proposed to change all our modes of carrying on the school?” “I can answer the doctor’s question,” replied young Mr. Eliot, who presided at the meeting. “There is a new president.”&nbsp;



The new president was a young man of thirty-five, fearless, bold, self-confident, with no respect for a thing just because it was old or had been done or used before. He had brand-new ideas about running a university, and he also had the courage as well as the ability to carry them out. He was determined to put new blood, new life into the old institution of which he had been made head, no matter what precedents he broke, or whose views he antagonized.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img src="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ChalesWEliotWEB-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-63033" width="512" height="341"/><figcaption>Profile portrait of American Educator Charles W. Eliot (1836-1926), president of Harvard 1869-1909.</figcaption></figure></div>



Young Eliot found the educational and religious systems of Harvard completely encrusted with traditions, but he was fearless enough and able enough to break through them, and, as a consequence, the little Unitarian college of four hundred students, under his brilliant leadership, became one of the greatest and most progressive universities in the world, with six thousand students, and with more instructors when he recently retired from the presidency than it had students when he stepped into power.&nbsp;



Perhaps no American in recent times has been such a great maker of men, such a revolutionizer of educational methods, such a breaker of educational traditions and medieval precedents, which have paralyzed so many of our colleges and universities, as President Eliot.&nbsp;



Leaders have ever been precedent breakers. Timid people, no matter how able, never make leaders. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-art-of-true-confidence/">Fearlessness and originality are characteristic </a>of all men of progress. They have no reverence for the old simply because it is old; with them it is always a question of pushing forward, of improving on the past, instead of slavishly copying it.&nbsp;



What Charles W. Eliot had done for the educational world, the Marshall Fields, the Wanamakers, the James J. Hills, the Carnegies have done for the business world.&nbsp;



Marshall Field was determined from the first that when customers came into his store they should see the marks of a vigorous originality everywhere, something different, something which they had never seen before. He was determined that whatever he did should be his own, that he would be himself, that he would not copy any other merchant, no matter how successful. He did not care what others did; he made his own program, blazed his own path. He was never afraid to trust his own judgment, or risk his reputation upon his own ideas. He was a born leader and was not afraid to go ahead, to blaze a new path which no merchant had ever trodden before. 



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John Wanamaker did not say that because A.T. Stewart had been America’s merchant prince he would imitate him, follow him. Both Stewart and Wanamaker succeeded in a remarkable degree in the same store in New York, but their methods were as different as those of Wanamaker and Marshall Field.&nbsp;



<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/are-you-an-original/">Do not be afraid of being original</a>, even eccentric; do not be a copy of your father, your grandfather, or your neighbor. This would be as foolish as it would be for the violet to try to be a rose. Every man is born to do a certain work in an original way. If he tries to copy some other man or to do some other man’s work, he will be a misfit, a failure.&nbsp;



A master mind can not be made to fit a pattern or to conform to any set routine or system. Every strong man’s achievement is an outpicturing of himself, of his individual ideas. What he manufactures and sells, the conduct of his business, the book he writes, the picture he paints, the sermon he preaches—this is the expression to the world of what was wrapped up in himself, not in someone else.&nbsp;



General Grant did what all the generals who condemned him for not following war precedents in text books on military tactics could not do, he ended the war. Napoleon ignored all previous war methods, broke all war precedents in his conquering march through Europe. Men of force and initiative are always breaking precedents.&nbsp;



Our great presidents have all been great tradition-breakers—the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Jacksons, Lincolns, Roosevelts—men who broke new ground, blazed new trails, and led people continually, vigorously, forward in the march of progress.&nbsp;



Roosevelt had little use for White House precedents or political traditions. In every position, where as police commissioner, Governor, Vice-President or President, he has always insisted on being himself—nobody else. He never tried to imitate or copy his heroes. No matter how much he admires a man, he never imitates him. A great deal of his remarkable force comes from being himself.&nbsp;



The imitator ruins his capacity for originality, for initiative; he loses his creative power; his inventiveness and resourcefulness are never developed. In fact, his executive ability—the ability to originate, to do things—is seriously crippled, if not utterly destroyed by his efforts to imitate some one else.&nbsp;



No human being ever yet made a success trying to be somebody else, no matter how great or successful that person might be. Success can not be successfully copied; it is original; it is self-expression. A man is a failure just in proportion as he gets away from himself.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Copied thought, always and everywhere, whether in books, sermons, paintings, or business methods, always lacks freshness, vigor, spontaneity, naturalness. The worked-over thought is like a warmed-over griddle cake; it lacks the crispness and flavor of the original.&nbsp;



It is not the artist who can faithfully copy Raphael or Millet who will become famous, but the one who can paint a picture that was never put on canvas before. The artist who can express his ideal in his own tints and colors, who can create something entirely new, all his own, is the one that will become a master.&nbsp;



<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/daring-to-dream-finding-the-courage-to-follow-your-own-path/">Blaze your own way</a>, or you will never make an impression on the world. It is originality that counts. The world makes way for the man with an idea. He is wanted everywhere. There is little room for learners, taggers, trailers, followers. The world is looking, as never before, for the man with original force, who leaves the beaten track and pushes into new fields; the physician, the surgeon, who dares to depart from the methods of those who have gone before him; the lawyer who conducts his case in an original way; the teacher who brings new ideas and methods into the schoolroom; the clergyman who has the courage to proclaim his message, the message that was given to him, and not that which was given to some other man who has put it into a book.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img src="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Precedent-Breaker-Spread1-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-63034" width="512" height="341"/></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img src="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Precedent-Breaker-Spread2-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-63035" width="512" height="341"/><figcaption>The ads often tell as much of a story as the stories themselves, depicting everything from fashion trends to new books to home safety tips.</figcaption></figure></div>



It is a pitiable thing to go through the world borrowing other people’s ideas, plans, methods; other people’s judgment—running to this one and that for advice—never developing your own power, independence, self-reliance.&nbsp;



I have often known progressive young men to stop growing and become hopelessly rutty by going into their father’s store, factory, or other place of business, where everything was done in an old-fashioned way, and precedent followed in everything.&nbsp;



Everywhere we see business houses weighted down with antiquated methods, ponderous bookkeeping, out-of-date appliances, because their owners cling to the old with fatal tenacity.&nbsp;



<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/10-things-effective-leaders-do-to-encourage-innovation/">The up-to-date business man</a> is constantly breaking up old-time systems which have been handed down from father to son for many generations. The progressive man pays very little attention to what was done in the past. He knows that the world is new every day, that it requires new treatment. He faces the sun of progress, he looks toward the light, he holds his mind open. He does not care how many people have done the work before, or in what way they have done it, or how many superstitions engirdle the thing he is working upon, he does his work in his own way. The present state of the world’s progress is the result of the constant breaking away from the past, the elimination of worn-out machinery, of cast-off ideas, foolish superstition, prejudice and worn-out methods.&nbsp;



England not long since sold thirty-one modern warships, which cost fifteen million dollars, for less than five per cent of what it cost to build them. These ships had not been in commission a great many years, but such has been the progress in shipbuilding that they are already out of date.&nbsp;



A great throbbing, almost human, how the printing press today throws off completed papers faster than one person can count them, and great rolls of paper are reeled off almost as fast as a horse can trot. The largest skyscraper in New York would not hold enough such printing presses as were used fifty years ago to turn out the same amount of work in equal time.&nbsp;



Everywhere the new is crowding out the old. Our most up-to-date machinery and electrical marvels will soon be only curiosities in our museums.&nbsp;



The marvels of electricity, wireless telegraphy, the airship, the automobile, printing machines and other almost human machines—all of the inventions and discoveries which have emancipated man from drudgery and ameliorated his hard condition—are the creations of men who were not content to plod along in the beaten paths of their fathers, but who stepped out of the crowd, and blazed new trails for mankind.&nbsp;



All of the comforts, conveniences and luxuries of modern life were conceived in the brains of men who broke away from precedent and hoary customs, and, often in spite of difficulty, opposition and ridicule, established a new and better order of things that pushed the world forward thousands of years on its progressive march.



The Howes, the Fields, the Stephensons, the Fultons, the Bells, the Morses, the Eliots, the Edisons, the Marconis, the Wrights—the precedent breakers in every age and in every land—these are the men who lead civilization onward, upward.&nbsp;



“Dare to go forward” was Baron Rothschild’s life motto, and it has been the maxim of all those who have left their mark on the world.&nbsp;



Don’t be afraid of your own ideas; believe in yourself; <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/08/04/andre-gide-originality/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">assert your individuality</a>.



This article originally appeared in the March/April 2022 Issue of SUCCESS magazine.

Do not be afraid of being original, even eccentric; do not be a copy of your father, your grandfather, or your neighbor. This would be as foolish as it would be for the violet to try to be a rose.

Do not be afraid of being original, even eccentric; do not be a copy of your father, your grandfather, or your neighbor. This would be as foolish as it would be for the violet to try to be a rose. | SUCCESS

From the Archives: What It Means to Be a Precedent Breaker | SUCCESS

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Orison Swett Marden

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From the Archives: The Power of the Mind Over the Body

From the Archives: The Ultimate Cost of Penny-Pinching

From the Archives: What It Means to Be a Precedent Breaker